Frailty
by OzZ Cometh
Summary: After a night of bizzare dreams and disturbing subliminal messages, Raven awakes inside a prison cell with no memory of how she got there. Subsequently, the withdrawn titan is thrown into a torrid nightmare that not even she could have fathomed...
1. Hermes

"Frailty"

A pseudo-cross over fanfiction

by

JackoMegane (AKA OzZ Cometh)

Disclaimer-

I own nothing of what is mentioned in this fic relating to Teen Titans or The Suffering...

Authors Note This fic is strictly based around Raven, as she is my favorite character in the show. If you do not like this, I apologize, but my writing tends to be better when it is solely revolved around something I personally favor.

Ch.1-"Hermes"

_What, oh what, were you thinking, challenging me_? Yet another subliminal message, assuming the guise of a disturbingly disembodied voice, brayed into the mind of a sleeping Raven. In response the withdrawn titan grunted softly and rolled over, the freezing cold of her accommodations forcing her into a fetal position.

_I can show you what truly lurks in the darkness..._

These voices in her head continued to rage, with no sign of relenting and even in such a deep trance of sleep, Raven could tell that where she was, was not where she should be. With a chilly sensation, the air carried an ominous feeling of dread. This place she had lain to rest in was all but safe. If a move wasn't made soon, she would never awaken, and even her sub-conscience knew this. Yet she remained shackled, and thus the messages continued to intrude the depths of her mind, on this occasion assuming a deep, robust voice,

_None of us thought you'd make it this far...So, who are you? ...What's your name? ...I wanna' know all about you..._

It made her begin to shake violently and gently thrash around, kicking what her body thought would be sheets, but turned out to be only air. This voice, however was a bit more insistent, almost as if it were trying to awaken her....

_You can't sit still and fight it forever...this place's stronger than you..._

Indeed, if it's mission had been to startle her from sleep, it succeeded. Not a moment after the enane set of rambling entered her head, her eyes begun to twitch and as she crossed the barrier, she was visited by one last message,

_How many of us have wound up here lacking a guilty conscience? ...Too many, but it never concerns me...because on Carnate, none of us are without sin for long..._

Sure as this barged into her thoughts, Raven's eyes snapped open, shortly followed by her torso flying into an upright position. It took a split second after rubbing her drowsy eyes to notice that she was not in her bedroom. Left to the concrete slab she had been laying on was a toilet and matching sink, perhaps stainless steel when they were in their prime, but presently caked with rust. The dim light recessed in the ceiling of the room that enabled her to see her surroundings did little to actually illuminate the room; with it's consistent flickering and nearly orange glow it, in effect, only made things seem more eerie

It took only one brief glimpse to her right to see an iron gate that prevented her from entering the hallway that lay behind it; and for the bitter reality that she was in a prison cell of some sort to sink in. She looked down at herself...it was still her, outfitted in the same black leotard (Though her cloak looked to have gone MIA) No, she had not entered the life of someone else...so what was happening?

No longer wanting to remain still, Raven hopped off the slab of concrete that served as a bed and approached the gate. Placing both hands on two of the bars, she examined the empty cell across from her own. After seeing nothing notable, she peered down the hallway as far she could, but got the same results. There didn't appear to be anyone that could help her out of this predicament.

In fact, there didn't appear to be anyone at all, thus the purpose of shouting seemed defeated.

She turned and begun to venture toward the back of her cell, hoping there would be something there that could help her to escape, however before she could grow even a mere five-foot distance from the gate, there came a terrible groaning noise, as though there were a hinge in motion that had been in terrible neglect of some WD-40. Raven whirled around just in time to see the door to her cell Finnish swinging open.

She eyed it suspiciously for what seemed like a lifetime and most likely would have persisted had yet another voice, loud enough for her to think it was being filtered through a megaphone, not called out in her head,

_Come now, little girl...you shouldn't keep your fears waiting..._

Naturally, she hastily looked over every square inch of the cell, but found nothing, confirming her fears that someone...or something had gotten inside of her head. Deciding to take the matter of warnings into her own hands, Raven closed both of her eyes as tight as they could go, lifted her head to the ceiling and spoke aloud in her usual hoarse-yet-monotone voice, "I don't know what you are, how you got into my head or what you're trying to do to me, but I can guarantee this...you're not going to win this little game of yours...so back off!" When there came no answer, she proceeded through the doorway and into the hall.

On either wall of the corridor were three cells (She woke up in the very last cell on the left) and at the end of the hall was a thick steel door, accompanied by a plate glass window that looked into an office of some sort; clearly the exit from this particular block. Wanting only to grow further away from the creepy cell she had awoken inside, Raven begun to approach the exit. While walking, she peered into the cell that neighbored hers out of curiosity--and almost instantly wished she hadn't. The violet-hared girl's pale hand promptly clapped over her mouth and her eyes nearly doubled in size as she took in the contents behind the bars.

The door to the cell had been crudely ripped off it's hinges and was now propped against the rear wall. Blood littered the ground, walls and meager furnishings. The concrete slab positioned in the very center of the room was especially covered in the crimson liquid, on top of which there lay the savagely mangled corpse of an inmate. Jammed in both of his eye sockets were blood-stained, bright-green syringes (Raven quickly noticed that there were also well over seven of them deeply embedded in his bare chest) The poor man's mouth, twisted and gaping open, easily expressed the agony he had suffered in his final moments that his eyes could not.

Raven only looked at the gruesome scene for a split-second before averting her gaze to the floor, but that time-frame was all she needed to gain the urge to hurl everything she had eaten in the last week. The girl knelt over and prepared to let the torrent of vomit that was climbing up her esophagus out, however before she could open her mouth, the steel door that would lead her out of this horrible, horrible corridor swung open.

Raven brought her eyes up from the ground to see a black man, outfitted in an aqua blue business suit and clutching what appeared to be a Cougar Magnum in his right hand, running toward her at a break-neck speed. The quiet titan quickly shrank back and begun to look for something to manipulate and hurl at him, however the notion promptly died when he bellowed, "SWEET JESUS, HELP ME!!!"

Before Raven could ask what the problem was, the very subject of her question came racing into the hall, scaling on the wall, traveling at such a blinding speed that it easily caught up with the still sprinting man. At first it was tough for her to make out any excruciating details of the creature, however when it slowed down and eventually came to a stop in order to ravage it's prey, she got a very good look.

For the most part, it looked humanoid enough. The three most bizarre features being the absence of it's calves and forearms, replaced by blood-stained blades that strongly resembled that of a machete' (Which in some bizarre manner, enabled it to scale walls and ceilings as though it were a spider), the stretched pale white flesh, rended and tattered over it's chest, and finally, the head, that's mouth and eyes had been sown shut (Yet it seemed perfectly capable of seeing and shrieking very loudly, as Raven would soon discover), completely decapitated from the rest of the body. The only thing keeping it even remotely attached was a rusted steel cage, fitted with a collar at the base that was bolted to the neck in a most painful looking fashion.

Realizing that there was nothing she could do quickly enough to save this most misfortunate man, she looked away, closed her eyes and waited to hear him scream. And scream he did. The most blood-curdling, agonizing scream she had ever heard. When it subsided, she opened her eyes and quickly caught sight of the man's corpse, however there was no creature. After sparing several minutes of cautiously waiting for the beastly thing to reappear (In which it didn't) Raven approached the man's dead body. One of his arms had been severed and there was a large cavity in his chest; it had become blatantly obvious that there was nothing she could do now. This man had served his time in the mortal realm, and in ways, he could still assist her to remain alive. Without a second thought, Raven seized the magnum from his hand.

Naturally it felt awkward holding the firearm. With her powers, she had always assumed she would never have to resort to utilizing guns, however when fighting criminals in Gotham, she noticed how she never had to kill any of them. Down here there was the unsettling notion that lives would have to be taken if she wanted to continue living and as much as she detested the idea, there remained the knowledge that when you got right down to it, there was no other option.

Before Raven clambered back to her feet (As she had to kneel to acquire the magnum) she took notice of an I.D tag pinned to his chest. Not wanting to covey the information through her mind, she silently read to her self, "Corrections officer Trevon Wi--" The words were cut short when a droplet of blood fell from above and splashed against the nametag. As a natural reflex Raven gazed toward the ceiling and caught sight of the officer's murderer--it had been waiting for her to make a move the entire time. Mere seconds after Raven swiftly rolled into a safe haven, the decapitated monstrosity came crashing down upon the floor.

Thinking quickly, she gasped the words, "Azarathmetrionzithnos!" In one breath and with it, raised the unhinged gate door she had spotted earlier. Just as the beast begun to menacingly approach her, the door collided into him from the side. Totally unprepared, it released a glass-shattering screech and doubled over, momentarily pinned to the floor.

Knowing that it could quickly wrestle it's way out from underneath it's shackles, Raven raised the pistol and, not totally sure what she was doing, fired a single round, which sunk into the beast's throat. As the bullet released from the chamber, Raven involuntarily recoiled.

The sidearm had a bastard of a kickback, however that one well-placed shot to the throat was all she needed to send the beastly creature back to whatever oblivion it had come from.

As soon as the blast made contact, it emitted a high-pitched cry of death, feebly kicked out a leg, then lay perfectly still. In a particularly short window of time, a dark pool of blood began to spread out from underneath it. Raven stood over the prone form for some time, asking herself what she had just done. How she had found the courage to do it...and it was as she wondered these things, the robust voice spoke to her bitch, ya' put me to shame...personally, I would like to have snuffed the life outta' one of those things, but whatever...maybe you'll make it outta' here after all...

Rather than grace the voice that seemed the most friendly with a reply, Raven turned and started towards the exit, wishing, hoping, praying that this hideous nightmare where her emotions didn't appear to effect anything, would soon end...

The office that was revealed by the plate glass seemed to be the most logical place to visit first. Inside Raven found some shells for the gun that she just happened to be carrying, a bottle full of pills and a map of that particular floor of the prison, however there was nothing that could ultimately help her escape. On a work-table there sat a communications radio, but a sign posted just above it read, 'Does not communicate with any radio frequencies outside of Carnate Island'. With that understood, it became evident that she was on an isle of some sort, and it seemed useless to be contacting another radio in the very place that was getting assaulted. Odds are, if something heard her call of distress...it wouldn't be coming to help.

Just before Raven exited the office, the speakers of the radio begun to crackle, stopping the dark titan in her tracks. Through the garbled static a man, clearly Negro, spoke,

"What's goin' down, bi-atches? It's Cedric Gibson, used to be servin' a life-sentence in this shit-hole, but with a little help from those freaky-ass spider-things, the inmates are runnin' the show now! Hah, hah, hah! I dunno' what the fuck's goin' on, but I LIKE IT!" With that, the transmission ended. Raven dismissed it carelessly and saw her self out.

The corridor she found herself in stretched a more-or-less long distance down then branched off to the left and right. On the wall was a directory sign reading,

'Showers-left

Admittance office, stairwells, restrooms-Right'

For a little while she tore herself over whether or not to go into the shower room, clearly a dead end, and hopefully find some survivors. In the end she decided for the showers. From what she gathered on the map in the radio office, she was not on the first floor (Though it really didn't bother to specify) and the odds were likely that simply by venturing down the staircase, she would not reach the way out.

The shower room was nothing like Raven thought it would be. Of course it was a prison, so she had particularly low expectations, but this just seemed inhumane. There was no entrance door; the hallway simply lapsed into a smaller-than-large room equipped with six chrome poles that had nozzles stuck on the top. At one wall stood two feeble, beaten up lockers that practically screamed to be recycled into something useful. As she rummaged through one of the scrap-iron storages, Raven muttered to herself, "Is this where the criminals we catch wind up?" By all means the punishment certainly didn't fit the crime...

While closely inspecting an un-marked bottle of pills, a voice, one that was not familiar and she knew for a fact wasn't in her head, spoke from behind her, "_No...you're not like the others that wind up here..._"

Raven swiftly turned, raising the magnum as she did so, to see a plume of visibly green gas begin to emerge from one of the drains in the stained tile floor. Strangely enough, it did not spread through out the room, but seemed to remain in one designated area. Once it had grown considerably, a humanoid figure began to take shape within it's confines.

"_The others were dull-minded...the only thing they thought about was finding a way out when the darkness consumed Carnate...you're not like them at all...you may want to escape...but at the same time, you want to embrace it, remain with it, drown in it..._" The apparition continued in an eerily placid voice, occasionally taking considerably deep breaths through it's nose while speaking. Raven, awestruck, receded a few steps as the fear again began to strike her with a devastating impact...and again having no effect on the environment.

"Who..." She begun in an unsteady (Yet still hoarse) voice, "...Who are you?"

The ghostly image inhaled through it's nasals before replying, "_Names...identities...labels...I always found them to be so...irrelevant..._" He cut himself off to gracefully float toward the frightened titan. Raven, not totally sure of what to expect, took in a deep bout of air and held it.

"_After all, when you are about to die, ready to take in that final breath, your name is the last thing you think of...I should know...but if you must know, it is Hermes..._". Understandably, she begun to back away. The spirit whom had identified himself as Hermes remained where he was, still talking, knowing that no matter how close to the exit of the room she grew, she would still be listening.

"_If in the end the side of you that want's leave wins over, I shall deal with you personally._" As Raven turned and begun to dash out of the room, she could still hear his words, "_Keep in mind...no one escapes what I bring about._"

-End chapter one-

Rambling from the author

...So what do ya' think so far? I realize that crossing TT over with The Suffering was a bit risky, (Especially considering that I have no intention of even mentioning Torque) but The Suffering was a genuinely dark enterprise, and I figured that would go well with Raven. The chapter itself may have been pretty short, but if it's one thing I learned from my time spent writing on TMFFA, it's this; long chapters tend to bore the reader as they near the end (Unless of course, it's an MST) Please drop a review if you get to this sentence...I really need to have some kind of gauge on how my writing's been doing...


	2. Horace

Frailty-

Chapter 2- Horace

_Was he following her? Had he stayed in the shower rooms? Would he really try to kill her? _Even as Raven approached the stairwell, these burning questions, not to mention Herme's words, were set on replay in her head, so capturing her mindset that she begun to repeat them aloud as she steadily approached the flight of stairs that would lead her only deeper into this psychotic labyrinth she had awoken in (A labyrinth that appeared to be in the middle of black-out, as she noticed the impending darkness throughout the halls).

"No one escapes what _I _bring about..." The titan whispered under her breath. No matter how creepy the gaseous apparition may have been, she had to admit, the line was pretty catchy.

"Well..." She murmured before starting down the stairs, "At least if he catches me, I'll be getting killed by someone who has a way with _words_...".

Her venture into the floor below her didn't last long before she heard someone's voice echo from above. A harsh male voice, shouting, "You want somma' me, fucking freak? Die! Die! Die!" With each 'Die' shouted there came a piercing gunshot.

Once the noise subsided, she returned to the top of the staircase, promptly searching the area upon arrival. To the left was the hallway that lead into the administration office. Due to the haunting encounter with Hermes, she had not noticed it before. The door was closed tightly and the corridor itself looked undisturbed.

To the right was the hall she had come from. After queuing in, she whirled around to see a hallway that lay next to the stairwell. She had noticed it while walking down the stairs, but had no desire to explore, as it lead only to a duo of restrooms.

The door to the men's restroom gaped open, flooding the dark hallway with light and giving her a more than ample view into the blood-stained tile room behind it; not to mention a plethora of corpses belonging to the bizarre machete creature encountered in the cell block. After a solemn moment of observation, a man emerged; raising his magnum at her as though it were a gut reflex.

Just as quick as he made this gambit, Raven put both hands in the air and yelped, "Don't shoot, I'm not one of them!"

The man, clearly a corrections officer, as he wore the same aqua blue suit as the less fortunate Trevon, did not lower the gun till he located a flash-light and shined it on her. Raven winced slightly as the overly-bright light hit her directly in the face, though she managed to find a way to see past it and get a clear look at him when he noted in surprise, "Wait a second...I know you!"

"You do? How?" Raven inquired, letting her arms fall to her waist.

"We found you conked out on the shore this morning...so damn pale, we thought you were dead, but..."

"But what?"

"Well, while we were carrying you in to figure out what to do, you had a spasm of some kind...."

"A _spasm_?!?"

The man gave a light shrug of his shoulders and begun to approach her.

"Yeah, I guess that's what you'd call it...you started thrashin' around and screaming....something about spiders....you don't remember?"

Raven shook her head despairingly. "No, all I know is that I woke up in one of the cells and there are all of _those_ things running around..." She pointed toward one of the dead beasts, then added, "Do you mind telling me what on Earth's going on?"

It was now his turn to shake his head in a way that made her heart sink.

"I got no damn clue. I took a nap in the break-room at around five, then woke up all of this

shit ..."

Again the C.O shook his head. "Eh...forgot to introduce myself." He extended a hand, which Raven hastily accepted. "Name's Harvey Alding....yours?"

"Raven."

Harvey's face faulted as he shook her hand, and he muttered, "Uh...that's okay, I didn't wanna' know your _real_ name anyway...."

Raven glared, but before she could make a retort, he started back up, "Look, I'm usually not too fond of working with someone else, but it's pretty obvious that we're safer if together..."

The titan nodded in agreement. "My thoughts exactly...."

After a moment of bleak silence, Harvey eyed the firearm tucked in her hand and promptly made a remark, "I noticed you gotta' gun...know how to use it?"

Not really thinking of it till then, Raven gazed down at the magnum in her hand, then at him, "Well, I've killed one of them with it...had to kinda' teach myself how to reload...."

Harvey stared for a moment more, then ran a hand through his hair; a jet-black crew-cut that complimented the contours of his forehead.

"Well, that's good enough. We'd better get downstairs. There's a really quick exit from this Hell-hole there...." With the order given, he turned and dashed down the staircase, Raven however, stayed at the top, thinking him over. He seemed like a good enough guy, and she desperately wanted to keep survivors, but it was clear that in regards to leadership, he was just like her...it went his way, or it didn't happen at all. However, since he had worked here, it was best to follow his lead; just as she followed Robin back in Gotham...

_Gotham_...Lord, how she missed it. It wasn't until now had Raven realized what she had. There she wasn't alone. There she didn't have to fight for her life on a constant basis. There she didn't run into some strange creature or ghost that left her quivering with fear...there... there her fucking emotions had some kind of _effect_ on the things and people around her! What kind of evil could have possibly happened on this island that could do this to _her _of all people?!?

"Hey! You comin' or what?!?" Harvey's harsh voice called from the base of the stairwell. The severity in his tone making her start in surprise. After rubbing her eyes irritably, she replied, "Yeah...sorry...guess I zoned out for a minute...". As she proceeded down the stairs, she muttered to herself, "Great...getting the crap scared out of me and _now_ I'mgunning for a mental break-down...what's next?"

The first occasion that she had gotten to the bottom of the stairwell, Raven hadn't gotten much time to take a look around before the gunshots sounded off from above her. The hallway of which it lead to didn't stretch out for very long; couldn't have exceeded fifteen feet. On the right was another radio office which, by the time she had arrived, Harvey had already rummaged through and reported to have found nothing. At the end were glass double doors that lead into a room of massive proportions, though not able to see much from where she was standing, Raven was able to catch sigh of a lavish glass roof that dominated most of the ceiling.

"This was the visitor check-in room..." Harvey informed while pushing through the doors.

"We gotta' another office and an old electrocution chamber as a tourist attraction...but I don't think there's much of a need to go in the--" His sermon was cut off when the glass roof shattered abruptly, through which there descended well over three of the decapitated beasts.

"Son of a bitch!" The officer exclaimed while placing aim on one of the intruding creatures.

Raven, determined not to let their sheer grostueqe capture her in a trance this time, raised the magnum, placed aim on one that just _happened_ to be running toward her, and squeezed the trigger. Again, the recoil hit her like a freight-train, but in contrast to the last time, the shot didn't do so much to help. The bullet sailed into it's chest and exited between the shoulder blades, causing the beast to shrink back and shriek in response, but hardly even a second passed before it recovered and continued to approach her.

Before another shot could be fired, it assertively rushed toward her and performed a reverse somersault, bringing it's blades/feet to collide into her. Though it intended to get it's prey in the throat, Raven, foreboding the front, had begun to sidestep and was in exchange nailed in the shoulder. The impact sent her flying into a wall and left a huge gash across her shoulder, which openly bled down her arm, but she wasted no time recovering to her feet.

Harvey, whom had just finished blasting one of his hunters between the eyes, turned to see the trouble his only companion had fallen in. Ignoring the some three or four enemies behind him, the officer murmured, "Damn kid..." And fired into the back of Raven's assailant, killing it with the second shot. There was not time to celebrate his victory before a blade was jammed into his side.

Howling in pain, Harvey whirled around and blindly pulled the trigger. After getting hacked in one of his calves, he painstakingly turned toward Raven and hollered, "DO SOMETHING, DAMN IT!"

Knowing that, while a blast from the gun may distract the beasts, it wouldn't help to kill anything, the titan scanned the huge room for something, _anything _to manipulate. Blatantly, it stood only five feet away from her. A heavy converter-belt operated metal detector. Length-wise, it was perfect to use as a bat. Raven collected all of her strength, knowing that ripping it from the ground would not be an easy task, then yelled, "Azarath... Metrion... ZINTHOS!" The black haze made quick work of engulfing the metal detector, but it wasn't till she lifted her arms to un-earth the giant piece of equipment did the strain begin to shoot through her.

Taken back by the sheer girth, Raven recoiled, but after hearing Harvey holler in pain at yet another attack of some sort, she gave a mighty heave, channeling all of her concentration into it. The bolts and iron that once held it to the ground groaned as the detector begun to give way.

After another mighty, determined heave, the cables that stemmed from the ground snapped, the bolts popped out, flying in different directions all across the room, and the detector became airborne. Knowing that no more time could be wasted, Raven shouted to Harvey (Whom she was no longer entirely sure was even alive), "Duck!" then spun around , swinging the metal detector in a full 360 degree arc that smashed into all that were in an upright position.

Having no strength left for a second swipe, Raven's arms fell limply to her side and shortly there-after she fell to her knees, leaving the detector, free of her black magic, to come crashing to the ground.

She took in several deep breaths before surveying the area. Every last beast that had fronted the assault lay on the ground, some of them severed completely in half by the devastating impact of the metal detector....but there was no Harvey...

_Click_

Raven felt something press against the back of her head. After a brief pause, of which she didn't dare move, she heard Harvey speak in a cold, scratchy, and among all, frightened voice, "Get up."

Not wanting to upset/disturb him any further, Raven climbed to her feet with no objection.

"Turn around....slowly..." Again, she complied and once fully turned to face the corrections officer, found herself staring down the barrel of his magnum.

"Harvey, what _are _you doing?!?"

Ignoring her, Harvey asked a question of his own, "What are you?"

Raven hesitated to answer, not so sure herself, but when the magnum was insistently shoved closer to her face, she replied, "I don't know what I am. But I know that I would _never _try to hurt you..."

"How the Hell can I be sure of that?"

"Because I just saved your _life_...just as you saved mine."

Hearing this, he relented, his eyes falling to the ground, though the gun remained centimeters away from her face.

"Don't do this, Harvey. We've been getting along well till now...put the gun down..."

Finally, the firearm fell to his side. Shaking his head morbidly, he turned and approached a bench, taking a seat once arriving.

"I swear to Gawd..." He murmured, holding his head in his hands, "I take one little nap, then I wake up and my entire world's been stolen away from me...."

Raven sat down next to him and scooted in relatively close.

"How do you think it felt for me, waking up in the middle of all this? I don't even know how I _got _here...."

Harvey looked toward her, then sighed. "When you're right, you're right. I'm actin' a fool... we won't get anywhere being like this...we _have _to keep moving, or those things'll pick up our trail before long."

Raven flashed a shy smile and ventured, "So...where to...?"

After reloading his magnum, he nodded toward one of the many doorways in the room.

"That hall's the quickest way outta' this place. Let's get there and get out." Harvey pulled himself off the bench and started for the doorway, with the silent titan trailing him. Just as he stepped across the thresh hold, Raven came to a dead stop. Realizing that he was no longer being followed, Harvey peered over his shoulder.

"Hey, what's goin' on?"

"I'm not sure..." Raven replied, rubbing her temples, "Something doesn't _feel _right...."

"Something doesn't feel right? You mean, like--" The corrections officer was cut off when the entire prison begun to violently tremble. After roughly a minute, it subsided.

"What the fuck was that?!?"

Raven wasn't totally sure of how to answer that question, but she _did _know that it wasn't safe. Something was direly wrong...

"Harvey...Get out of the hall..._now_!" She heeded, panic consuming her voice. Just as the warning came, Harvey begun to dash back toward the doorway, however it wasn't fast enough. The violent quaking picked up where it left off, this time five times stronger; so immense and overwhelming that it sent both of them to the ground. Before either could recover, the hallway that lead to the exit's foundation begun to crumble, shortly followed by the walls collapsing and the ceiling's plummet to the floor.

Though she was not knocked unconscious by the bizarre squall, it took full minutes for Raven to recover to her feet, but when she did panic instantly set in. The doorway of which Harvey had failed to cross through had been reduced to a flaming pile of rubble, twisted metal and crushed concrete.

"Harvey...Harvey are you behind all this, can you hear me?" She called, but got no answer. Refusing to believe that he could really be dead, Raven screamed as loud as she could, "HARVEY!"

On this occasion, she received a reply; A long, drawn out groan.

"Harvey, are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay!" He shouted back after several minutes of silence. "My fuckin' arm's broken!"

Raven breathed a sigh of relief at simply getting to hear his voice. After collecting herself, she continued, "Can you still get out?"

After another bout of un-nerving silence, he answered, "Uh huh. The exit isn't blocked...but it ain't _me_ you should be worrying about right now...it's you..."

"I know, I _know_!" She retorted in a stressed pitch. "Is there another way out of here?"

"Yeah, but it won't be pretty..."

"_Nothing's _been pretty this entire time, just tell me!"

"It's...uh..." He stumbled for a brief moment, sounding as though he didn't want to say it.

"It's through the lethal injection chamber...but you have to go through the basement to get there..."

Raven's face faulted.

Merely the word _basement _didn't sound lavishly appeasing, but despite this, she muttered, "...What's so bad about it?"

Harvey scoffed before answering, "There's way more than just those spider things crawlin' around down there...weirdest crap I've ever seen.."

Raven sighed plaintively. It was clear that she had no option, no matter _how _much she didn't want to do it. Though the rubble could most likely be manipulated and moved, it was at the same time quite massive in proportion, impossible to be done all at one time. And time was something that wasn't on her side. She had to keep moving.

Before picking herself up to leave, she called to Harvey one last time, "Are you sure your going to be okay alone?"

"I'll be fine. This hall lead's right out into the parking lot, so I could just _drive _to town...don't think it'll be too much different, but at least I can get in contact with the coast-guard there..."

"Good thinking...I'm going to get leaving now...." As she begun to walk away Harvey called after her, "Raven!".

Shocked that he had actually remembered her name, Raven whirled around to face the pile.

"Yeah?"

"Be careful, kid..."

"I will..."

It wasn't long before she found herself gaping at the door that lead into the basement; slightly shocked at how she could wind up going through an entire floor with no conflict at all. The door, like a mute, returned her gaze; taunting her to push it open. Whoever owned the robust voice that occasionally visited her head was right--this place was stronger than her...but that didn't mean she couldn't beat it.

Reluctantly, her hand placed onto the rectangular metal strip that served as a handle; after taking a deep breath, she shoved it open and, paying no attention to the room it gave way to, bolted in.

To say the place she found herself in was _old _would have been a slight understatement. Old, in relevance to commercial buildings, was usually something along the lines of fifteen or twenty years. This place couldn't have been younger than forty.

Adjacent to the small room was a hallway. When she saw nothing of any particular interest in the room, she begun to venture toward the only option, but just as the narrow corridor was breached, a phone hung on the wall of the room began to ring. It had not gone un-noticed when she entered, but considering the power had been cut, there didn't appear to be much reason to fool around with it (That and it looked severely out-dated).

At first Raven relented. But in the end her curiosity won out, and she answered,

"..Hello?"

"_Hello_!" Came a reply, filtered through a _very _audible voice that carried with it a slightly muddled English accent, "_I've been watching you, and my interest is sparked_!_ I wish to know everything about you_!"

Raising an eyebrow, she responded in a bewildered tone, "Why?"

"_Well, have you not heard the old doctor's saying? In order to cure, you must first understand_! _And clearly there's something VERY wrong with paying a visit to my asylum in the near future...there would certainly be some great benefits in store for you..._" With that, the _click_ that signified the other line hanging up sounded.

More puzzled than she had been the entire time she was here, Raven placed the phone back on the receiver, then yanked it off and held it back to her ear. Nothing. Dead air. Not even a dial-tone. Clearly she had visited by yet _another _apparition of some sort...

As much as it disturbed her, she was determined not to let it slow her down. She turned and proceed through the hall. It was short-lived on it's own, extending about ten yards, then breaking off to the left. When she rounded the corner, her heart sunk. In front of her was a fairly stout-looking gate, blocking her from persisting.

"Terrific...what can I do now?" The girl muttered to herself hopelessly. Just as she was beginning to consider going back toward the pile and using her manipulation to clear it up, as dangerous as it would be, the air behind the gate begun to distort itself.

Before she could study it closely enough, a terrible tearing noise rung through the air, as though the fabric of time were being ripped open. It grew to such extremes that she was forced to cover her ears. As she continued to watch, what she could only assume to be a ball of electricity crackled and materialized into the air, appearing in such a bright luminescence that her eyes closed tightly as a sheer reflex. When it eventually subsided (Which took full minutes to achieve) what remained was a man, the most notable thing about him being the teeming volts of raw electricity that threateningly cracked and lashed around him.

As a human, he was tall; particularly husky, with frighteningly pale skin. He had a gut that revealed a personal distaste for exercise, but superlatively built arms that seemed to tell a different story. His light blue prisoner's uniform made it obvious that he had served time in this cursed place, and most likely died here as well. But all of these things quivered in comparison to when he spoke, leaving Raven gasping in recognition. This ghost was indeed the one who possessed the robust voice that she found the most friendly.

"_Huh...you should be proud, kid....I really never figured you'd make it this far. God knows I didn't...I'm Horace._"

Raven, wide eyed and speechless, merely backed away.

"_Yeah...you might wanna' do that._" With those words spoken, the wraith named Horace extended both of his arms, emitting a bolt of electricity that struck the gate with such power, it was reduced to only a few fragments of iron.

"_Lemme' ask ya' somethin'..._"He continued while approaching Raven, who only persisted to move in reverse--till she backed herself into a wall.

"_When you killed those things, it made you feel good, didn't it?_"

In exchange her jaw dropped open, as it seemed he was reading her emotions to her.

Still unable to find it in herself to speak, Horace pressed on, "_Sure, you didn't wanna' do it....no one does....but when you were forced to, backed into a corner, then lashed out and decided their fate for them, without their consent...it turned you on...am I right?"_

He eventually grew so close to her that the static begun to pull her hairs toward him.

"_It's this island...Carnate brings out the worst in all of us..._" He suddenly brought his face down to where it was level with her own, frightening her, but apparently not enough to make her move.

"_I been down here a damn long time...never learned much about it...but I do know this..._"

When those words escaped his lips, a clap of lightning came crashing down from the ceiling; subsequently causing him to vanish--but his last few words remained in her head--

_Your bein' here ain't no coincidence...._

-End Chapter 2-

Okay, this chapter may have started to wane toward the end, but I wrote the entire thing today, so even as I type this, I feel _very _light-headed. I also am quite sure that I probably misspelled the words, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos", and I apologize if I did, but it seems to me that everyone and their grandmother has a way of spelling it.


	3. DrKilljoy

"Frailty"

Chapter 3- "Dr. Killjoy"

...Was it a boiler room? She wasn't sure, but if the roughly ten-by-ten foot room Raven had just entered _wasn't_, it could do a good job of fooling even the most trained eye, with it's dirt-ridden scale-machines, numerous sacks of coal that were stashed in every empty area possible and an endless assortment of dark-green pipes that ran every which way, making freely moving around a difficult task. With all of the blockage, it looked to be a dead-end, but Raven knew better through experience. This had been the first full room she had entered since being introduced to Horace, thus the path that would lead her deeper into the bowels of the basement had to be _somewhere_ between these four walls.

After running a hand across a pipe to make sure they weren't heated, she dropped to her belly and begun to crawl underneath one of the many metal tubes (A task she by all means did_ not _want to perform, but alas, was left with no choice) as she went about doing this, her mind wandered back to an event that had occurred no more than ten minutes ago, and only a hall away...

Raven _had _to be thankful for Horace's existence. Had he not shown up and destroyed the iron gate, she would have been, to put it bluntly, up a shit creek without a paddle. But despite his invaluable assistance and over all friendly demeanor, when he grew near her, she could not _help_ but feel every bit as threatened as her encounter with Hermes. When it was pondered over, if Horace's soul was so restless, it _obviously_ had to have come at some sort of event that occurred within his life-span...and considering he appeared to have been a prisoner here at some point, it was obvious that it was _his _fault. So why in Hell would some one who had doomed themself be _so _willing to help her escape? ...Unless he wanted something from her in return...

After recovering to her feet and spotting the entry way to a thin hallway, Raven gave the entire subject of Horace a mental shrug and proceeded to exit the boiler room. Halfway through her venture down the corridor, a voice that sounded quite near-by hollered in a nervous sort of agitation, "WHAT'RE YOU WAITIN' FOR, YOU BASTARD?!? JUST GET IT OVER WITH!!" Immediately recognizing it as trouble, Raven hastily cleared the rest of the hall and turned yet _another_ corner that led her to the left, after which she found herself in what would appear to be a dead end, till her eyes raised to the ceiling and saw that the walls extended upward another ten feet, easily saving space for a second floor.

Perhaps a few years, months or possibly even _days _ago, there had been a ladder that would allow clearance to this floor, but as Raven surveyed her surroundings, she found no object that would assist her in climbing to the destination; ultimately making the dark titan feel _quite _fortunate that she had been blessed with the power of levitation.

After focusing, she murmured, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos..." and promptly became air-born.

The flight didn't last long. As soon as Raven had come within the right distance to land, she let her powers go and fell gently to her feet. Again, she found herself in a narrow corridor (A sight she had become quite prone to seeing) However, this hall was so short that there was hardly any room to even turn around in without falling back down the hole. At the end was an oak French door, possessing closed blinds that had been positioned on the other side. Just as Raven's hand grasped the knob, the voice shouted once more, "C'MON YOU SICK PEICE OF SHIT! ...DO IT! I AIN'T AFRAID OF YOU!" his words contrasting horribly with the terrified tone.

"Don't worry, guy....I'm coming!" The titan muttered before turning the knob and pulling the door halfway open. It was all the space she needed to see what was going on.

She was looking into a large carpenter's work area, furnished with work-benches, buckets full of wood-shavings and several power-saws, however none of these things were what caught Raven's eye. At one end of the room was a wooden pole. Crudely nailed into the floor, it stood a some eight-to-nine foot distance. Tied firmly to it was a blind-folded corrections officer--clearly the man whom had been demanding to be killed. At the other end of the room stood an entirely new beast, every bit as disturbing as the beheaded freak-show that she had been fighting. The hulking monster was so repulsive that Raven had to bite her tongue to keep from shrieking in horror.

Like the last creature, this monstrosity was human in it's general form, the only difference being it's abnormal girth. It's height reached such an extent that even when hunched over (Which appeared to be it's predominant stance) it easily cleared seven feet. It's head, chiseled with a short fore-head, was absent

of both hair and eyes, leaving only a gaping mouth that was lined with dull, peg-like teeth and ears that were large enough to be confused with government satellite dishes.

It was clothed only from the waist down in a pair of faded green trousers, looking to be of a military fashion. On it's back was an abnormally large hump that extended outward nearly five inches and stretched from it's shoulders to the small of the spine. Protruding from this hump, like appendages, was a vast array of long-distance artillery, ranging from the common-day Berreta to a nineteen-twenties Tommy Gun.

The creature was dormant, till the officer again begun to shout, "GET ON WITH IT, FUCK-FACE! PULL THE TRIGGER, YA' GODAMN FREAK!"

Abruptly, it dropped to it's hands and knees. In sequence, every gun that extended from the hump placed aim on the doomed officer (Raven took notice of one gun in particular--a double-barreled pump-action riot-shotgun that utilized dum-dum rounds--_highly _illegal in Gotham).

Having the strangest sense of deja-vu involving Trevon, Raven closed her eyes and thought to herself,

_You asked for it, man...Damn it! I might have been able to help if he'd just kept his mouth shut!_

In unison the guns begun to pulverize their target. Much to Raven's relief, there was no scream. He simply slouched over and coughed up a few spatters of blood before succumbing, however what was quite possibly the first _positive_ emotion she had felt in this place quickly turned to fear when she realized the creature had spotted her.

It wasted no time falling back to it's knees and directing it's arsenal at her. Knowing that there was not enough time to utilize her powers, she dropped to the floor and rolled into a safe-haven, just barely evading a fatal hot wave of bullets. Just after returning to an up-right position, she caught sight of the perfect item to use as 'Catapult ammo', if you will--an un-touched block of lead that had to have weighed at least thirty pounds.

After performing another evasive maneuver just to stay one step ahead of her opponent, Raven raised her hands and audibly called out, "Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!".

Once engulfed in the familiar dark haze, the block was lifted from the ground and chucked into the head of the hunched creature, acquiring a direct-hit. The hefty block forcefully smashed in it's face, causing the large abomination to recoil then come crashing to the floor in a large heap.

It may have been down, but Raven refused to take any chances; judging from the officer's fate, this particular genre of demonic being was _far _more intelligent than the other. If she gave an inch, it would go a mile, no doubt about it.

Standing over it, Raven placed the small stub on the end of the magnum's barrel directly on the beast's face, then cleanly relieved the firearm of three rounds. It gave a die-hard squirm on the first blast, feebly flinched on the second and made no move at all on the third. After issuing several light kicks to it's ribs, Raven pronounced it dead and decided to pressed on.

At first glimpse, the room looked as though it were an invariable dead end, with no alternate exits any where in conventional sight It wasn't until Raven begun to ran-sack the place, pulling everything away from the walls, did she notice a collection of large ply-wood sheets stashed away in a corner of the room. Piecing things together, she seized the timber and jerked it away, letting sheet by sheet fall to the floor. Once the wall had been stripped of everything, it revealed an exceptionally short door-way, above which there was a sign, reading, "Generators".

This set of halls were far less illuminated than the last. Not a saving grace of light _anywhere_, but in ways, it didn't seem too horrible. If the power generator was somewhere in this place, there was the ample possibility that power to this bizarre Hell-hole could be restored--at least then she wouldn't be alone _and_ in the dark. The corridors turned and twisted, leading her in a number of directions, but never once did they swerve to multiple paths, for which she felt thankful.

After what seemed like an hour of walking, she came to a clearing. Due to the pitch black that shrouded her vision, it was tough to tell just _what_ she was walking into, till she ran into a metal object of some sort. Getting her priorities in check, she begun to grope around it until she found what she was looking for--a switch.

_Click_

The industrial machine begun to emit a low humming noise, indicating it's operation. Shortly following this, the room she was in was bathed in a pale light from above. But it brought no good discoveries. Raven looked around, saw _them_ and her heart stopped. They surrounded her. Machete' beasts every direction she turned. Had they been waiting for her? Was all of this planned? She wasn't sure, but at that moment the light had been turned on, it did only one thing. Assisted to make death imminent. They approached slowly--taking inch-by-inch steps, as though savoring the moment. Even their inanimate blades seemed chaotically hungry; as if _ready_ to ready to rend her helpless flesh.

"Stay...stay _back_...." Raven weakly warned before falling to her knees. She thought she would make it out of this place alive. Come away with a new out-look on life. But it was not to be. The truth was _not _kind. As they steadily closed the gap between her and themselves, the tears begun to pour from her eyes. There were no sobs. Only tears.

"How....how could this happen to me?" She stumbled.

"What have I...what have I..." Raven didn't finish before her vision begun to blur. The last thing she would remember before blacking out was raising her head toward the ceiling and releasing a deafening scream--stemming more from a new found white-hot rage than anything else.

A half hour later, she lay face down on the floor, her pulse ordinary, her breathing normal. Slowly, her eyes begun to twitch, but still unconscious, the subliminal messages flourished inside her mind, the first she recognized as the man from the phone--

_Did you think I was just joshing when I said there was something wrong with you? The curse of Carnate may have helped you this time, but if you are not cured before departing, it will SWALLOW you..._

The second voice was Hermes. Indeed, he had paid his first visit to her mind, taking his usual nasal inhales while speaking,

_If you truly want to be free of this place...you should really just die...though where you end up may not be as glorious as you once thought..._

As her eyes begun to open, once last message crossed the border of her head, sounding like a small, terribly angered child,

_You used to get so mad at us, then you couldn't even remember! I NEVER understood how you could just forget...._

She begun to painstakingly lift her self from the cold, rigid floor, a slight soreness in all of the areas that had been pushed against it underneath her weight.

Though she had a terrible head-ache, there were no serious cases of amnesia. She easily recognized the room, how she got there and the fatal predicament she had wound up in as a result of entering. What she _couldn't _remember was killing even one of the beasts that were ready to butcher her. But as she came to, she realized that not even one of their corpses remained in tact. Nearly every square inch of the room was sprayed with their blood and littered with random appendages. In ways, it almost looked as though the whole lot of them had been shoved into a wood-chipper.

Whatever happened, it didn't look like it had occurred in self-defense. No, whomever went about committing this did it out of passion. As if brutally dismembering living beings was their fix. The beasts may have been savage cold-hearted murderers with no regard for their victims, but not even _they _deserved this. Nothing, no matter what level of disgust it had achieved deserved _this_...

At first the thought that Horace had come about and helped her for the second time of the night briefly crossed her mind, but it was promptly eliminated with a subtle gasp. Raven had looked down at herself and realized that she was _smothered _in blood...._their _blood, nearly head to toe. As it sunk in, the memory of her phone-conversation came whirling back into her head.

"....He was _right_!" The wide-eyed titan cried in horror, "There _is _something wrong with me! ...Something...on the _inside_..." It was undeniable. Some contemptible animosity was beginning to swell inside of her.

Until she had reached the stair-case that would lead her back up to the prison, Raven wandered aimlessly, pondering over what to do with herself. She stopped and stared momentarily.

"The way to the lethal injection chambers..." She murmured to herself in a weak voice.

"Just like Harvey said...."

Even with the lights _on_, the prison still seemed eerie, but the lack of human companionship and the knowledge that she could get killed at any moment were dominating contributors.

After stopping by a bathroom to clean the blood from her, Raven spotted the Lethal Injection room toward the end of the hall, and proceeded to let herself in.

The door from which she had entered lead into the witness room, adjacent to the actual execution chamber. On the stand there sat three chairs, all of which were populated by dead, syringe-ridden officers. Laying on the injection-bed was an in-mate, a single needle shoved between his eyes (Which, in comparison to the others, was a _sensational_ way to go) Raven tried her best not to stare at the countless bodies as she maneuvered toward a door that possessed a glowering 'Exit' sign above it.

Her hand grasped the knob, but before she could turn it, something caught her eye. A duo of security-monitors that had been positioned in the witness section, strangely, the word 'Paused' flickered at the corner of one of the screens. The cameras themselves stood only a few feet away, pointed toward the bed. Intrigued, Raven made her way toward them (Again, placing her mind elsewhere as she grew near corpse-ridden chairs).

Standing on her toes, Raven reached upward and pressed the 'Play' button. In compliance, the screen begun to relay it's contents.

Beside the bed stood a man, outfitted in medical fatigues that looked as though they were from the early nineteen-hundreds, but what was stranger was the fact that he, when looked at closely, appeared to be_ transparent_. A few feet away from him an old film-projector sat, on a chair, it's shot aiming directly toward the man. It wasn't until then had Raven made the bizarre discovery that it was _he _who was being projected.

"_Hello, students!_" The man spoke in a voice that she easily recognized as the apparition from the phone. "_It is I, Doctor Killjoy! Today I will be demonstrating how to properly administer a lethal injection.._" With that, he turned toward the bed, on top which was the very in-mate who lay there now. He squirmed and struggled around in his bindings, but it came to no avail.

"_Now, naturally, the subject of the injection is not going to want this procedure to take place, and will likely begin to struggle, as a means to procrastinate, as you can plainly see...the best course of action to take in this case, would be to...._"

Raven winced as the would-be Doctor issued a hard slap across the in-mates face, then repeated this process, speaking as he did so,

"_Beat them..._"

_SMACK_

"_Into a more...."_

_SMACK_

"..._Dormant_...."

_SMACK_

"..._Condition!_"

After he was finished, Doctor Killjoy reached for a syringe. In response, Raven's jaw dropped open.

"No!" She gasped.

"_By now it's become rather blatantly obvious that we're not gunning for humanity during this particular execution, so....TO EACH, HIS OWN!"_. The projection took a step forward and jammed the needle between the inmate's eyes, instantly causing Raven to head back for the doorway. She didn't want to stay in this room. She didn't want to stay in this _building_.

She opened the door and was met by a blast of chilly night air. Before leaving, she gazed back toward the execution bed. Could something _that _demented and cruel truly be capable of curing her? And she stared....and she wondered....

-End Chapter 3-

A special thanks is in order to ShapeChangingChick, as she left me my second review (I'd thank the other, but she left no signature) Thanks for the compliments. Open-minded folks like you are the reason I keep writing.

-JackoMegane


	4. Everything you can't leave behind

"Frailty"

Chapter 4- "Everything you can't leave behind"

Disclaimer- I did not write the song "This song brought to you by a falling bomb" Geoff Rickley of the band Thursday did.

Nothing negative was observed in the midst of that glorious moment. The fact that she was _still_ surrounded by the stout prison walls didn't matter. The ambient noises in the back-ground that resembled nothing short of a full-blown war didn't bother her in the slightest, and the heavy possibility that she had just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire had no effect at all. Nothing could ruin the moment in which Raven escaped the _confines _of that wicked, horrible place.

The second the door behind her was brought to a full close, the titan lifted her head and took in a large breath of the crisp night air. Before bringing her gaze back down, she stared at the sky briefly; just long enough to note that despite there being an utter lack of clouds, not a single star resided within the heavens, the only saving grace of a natural light being a full, golden moon. It was a haunting spectacle, the likes of which she had never _seen _before. Odd indeed, but in recent hours, it wasn't such a leap of faith to believe.

Nothing was able to stop her. She could have done it right then and there. Took flight and left. It didn't matter where she wound up, just as long as it was away from this cursed place...but a number of things kept her from doing such...Just the thought of leaving without knowing whether or not Harvey was okay _alone_ was enough to keep her tethered to the island, but there was something else...something she hated thinking of. The animosity. Carnate's curse. Raven refused to be so senile as to deny it's existence. Oh, it existed, and it was _inside_ her. She would rid herself of this, or never leave. And despite his obvious mountain of flaws, something told her that Dr.Killjoy was the person to see.

"But first thing's first..." Raven muttered while gauging her surroundings, "I have to get out of this prison...for _good_." To her right, the fencing stretched on just long enough for the ground to melt into the darkness and dense fog, as opposed to the dead-end five-foot extension towards the left.

Under the influence of a no-other-option situation, Raven begun to venture to the right, but she had not even gone five feet before a near noise caught her attention; the rustling of a bush that had been planted on the other side of the fence.

The titan eyed it, but found nothing to concern over and continued moving. Just as her back became fully turned from the shrub, a machete' beast leaped out from it's hiding place and cleared the fence, landing behind her. Hearing the racket once more, Raven turned to see the monster, grinding it's arms/blades together menacingly.

"_Damn_!" She cursed while assuming a defensive stance.

It began the battle rushing directly for her, raising an arm in preparation to strike. Raven let it come and, just before the blade came down, rose her hand and waved it to the side, leaving behind a sheer shield, entirely comprised of black magic that lasted just long enough to rebound the creature's gambit.

Though slowly stepping in reverse, Raven continued allowing it to attack, using the same sorcery to block every attempt on her life. Just as she begun to counter, the beast leapt into the air and landed behind her, giving the titan no time to turn before lashing out with one of it's feet, achieving a direct slash across the back that sent her sprawling forward.

Raven groaned in pain as the slice that seared from her left shoulder-blade to her right hip begun to sink in. It took several agonizing seconds to turn on to her back and when she did, the only thing there was to see was the decapitated beast standing over her.

"B...Bite me...ya' potshot..." She feebly muttered while pulling the magnum out from between her waist and the charm that was strung around it (She had been using this as a make-shift holster). Either her opponent did not see this, or the danger of a gun simply didn't register in it's head, but for whatever reason, it continued to take it's precious time preparing to finish her off.

Just as it heaved deeply and brought it's blade to the sky, Raven squeezed a round into it's chest. It stumbled in reverse, but didn't fall, thus another round was fired, this time into it's throat. Again, it appeared to be quite effected, but did not come down. It wasn't until the third shot hit it in the face(Somehow getting past the cage), reducing well over half of it's head to a gory paste, did it collapse, making a sickening _SPLAT _when it collided with the ground. Amazingly still alive, it subtly squirmed around before curling into a half-ass fetal position and laying still.

Raven spared a few moments of growing prone to her new injury before recovering to her feet. Her back throbbed dully, but with a slight wince, it was shrugged off each time. Due to her backpedaling during the heated altercation, she had not noticed how near she had grown to the end of the fence, and was quite shocked when she turned to see the barrier's conclusion come in the form of a guard tower. About fifteen feet shy of the building's peak was a square-shaped floor-grating that wrapped around the entire tower. Positioned on each corner was a vividly bright spot-light.

This key structure's purpose was to serve as a superlative sniping position, giving some one who happened to be there an ample view of nearly that entire section of the prison, however from where Raven stood, it seemed rather desolate. And desolate was _never_ a good thing.

Knowing that the only way to get around this tower would be to go _through _it, Raven approached the steel door, pulled it to the side and cautiously slipped inside. _Darkness_. The very first thing she took notice of. The windows from the second floor shined down through the ladder-hole, providing just enough light for her to see the form of the exit door. After venturing into the middle of the compact room, Raven scanned her surroundings, then begun to mutter to herself (A habit she had begun to form to avoid from having too much interaction with her mind, fearing that something else just might reply), "Eh...maybe I should check things out from the second floor fir--"

_PLIP_

A droplet of blood fell from above and landed on her cheek. Once it was whipped clean, Raven looked up to see what she could have sworn to be a large puddle of the bodily fluid smattered against the ceiling, only a few drops becoming earth-bound.

"_WHAT_ in He--" She didn't finish her exclamation before a skinned human torso, severed from the waist-down, came bounding out from the collection of blood, suspended by a stout rope that wrapped tightly around it's throat.  
  
Nowhere _near _expecting something this bizarre, Raven had no time to evade before she was seized and taken off her feet. It traveled at such an amazing pace that before she could even comprehend the situation, they were at the ceiling, the quite literally 'Halfling''s head already submerged in the puddle. Before it could pull her in to where ever it had come from, Raven's hands caught against the gravel ceiling, just _barely_ outside of the blood's reach.

"No!" The amethyst-hared titan groaned, struggling to free herself, "You're _not _taking me with you!"

In the middle of her squirming, she stole her nerve and clamped her teeth on to it's wrist. The hand of which the afflicted wound belonged to recoiled and loosened it's grip just enough for her to escape or rather, plummet a nearly thirty foot distance. The monster, realizing it had lost it's prey, quickly went in pursuit. If Raven had not been falling with her back facing toward the ground, she likely would have been recaptured in mid-air.

Given a clear shot while steadily falling toward the ground, she placed aim and discharged a single round that blew it's entire jaw away from the rest of the skull. Strangely enough, this caused the noose that allowed it to travel from the puddle of the blood toward the ground to snap and the bizarre creature begun to follow suit with Raven's venture toward the floor.

Mere feet away from the fatal collision, Raven's levitation took control and hung her there, allowing the titan to watch her captor sail past her. Shortly after this came the clear _SPLAT_, indicating that it hit the cement ground--and hit it hard.

She didn't come down. Instead, Raven begun to slowly hover higher toward the second floor. Half of it was to continue with her initial plans, but the other was to spectate this new class of adversary _safely_. After taking a fall like that, she was rather confident that it was dead, but couldn't be _sure_. Here she couldn't be _sure _of anything. It was that persistent caution and her measure of fear that had helped her live up to this point. On Carnate, the person who was not afraid was too stupid to live.

"A rift..." She muttered as she came near the ceiling, receiving an eye-full of the puddle. "A damn dimensional rift...what _are _these things?!?"

The second story of the tower was every bit as devoid of objects as the first. Save the height differential, the only two things that separated it from it's lower predecessor was the door that exited into the sniping grates and large windows that stretched over every wall.

Again, when Raven stepped outside, she had the pleasant surprise of being met by a cool breeze, but also took note of some heavy clouds beginning to gather in the sky.

"Let's see what we have, here..." The titan muttered while approaching the spotlight that was closest to her next exploration point. With it's guiding light leading in a completely wrong direction, Raven redirected the giant flash-light to the front.

"Sweet _Jesus_!"

The decision to scan things from above had been a clever one indeed. The area that was entered through the tower appeared to be a recreations ground, crawling with machete beasts and the bizarre gun-creatures alike.

A giant square in it's general shape, the fencing divided it into three different sections. On either end was a basketball court, between them a work-out hall, twice as large. At one end of the fenced square was yet _another _guard tower, unlike Raven's it was populated and as far away as she may have been, she could hear their conversation.

"Damn! It's starting to rain!"

Raven looked up to see the light sprinkling mentioned coming down. Strange, as the sky was crystal clear a little less than a half-hour ago, but just like the absence of any stars in that particular moment, she dismissed it.

Sighing deeply, she begun to head for the exit into the, for lack of a better word, Inmate Playground, she may have been putting herself in a bad position, but at least she knew what to expect.

Almost the moment she entered the recreation ground, the machete beast's attention had been caught, not to mention the C.O's. Again, she could hear their audible shouts, "Wait a second! I think I see someone! Point it to your left!" In sequence, the spotlight of the tower went in the completely opposite direction, arising a groan from the commanding officer.

"Your _other _left, you dumb bastard!"

"Work it your own damn self then!"

"Fine! Gimme' it!"

The brilliant luminescence of the spotlight came to rest on Raven, but she hadn't much time to pay attention. As the C.O's were fighting amongst each-other, the beasts had drawn frighteningly close. Just as she prepared to manipulate one of the basketball goals, the corrections officer operating the spotlight picked back up, "Good Lord! It's the girl from this morning!"

"You gotta' be shittin' me! She's alive?!?"

The officer didn't answer, but instead called down to her, "Hey! Hey, you! Don't worry about those things! We'll take care of em', just head for this tower!"

Deciding to heed the information, Raven turned and took off in a mad dash for the tower. Just as she begun to move, bullets, clearly being fired from an automatic weapon, begun to come down on the ground like a hail storm. It wasn't till she had reached the entry door did she hear the officer speak again, but it wasn't at _all _what she thought it would be...

"Aight', I think she got into the-hey, what the _fuck _is that?!? Oh, shit! Shoot it, shoot it!" Following this was a torrent of agonizing screams.

Raven sparred no time entering the tower and flying up to the second room to assist her saviors in whatever problem they had encured, but alas, by the time she had reached them it was too late. They both lay in a large pool of blood, multitudes of the bright green needles shoved in them as though they were pin-cushions. The only thing the scene lacked was the perpetrator.

Almost instantly upon seeing the corpses, Raven's shock and disgust back-peddled her away, moving fluidly till she felt a furious sting arise in her exposed calve. After yelping in a contortion of surprise and pain, her hand jerked down toward the afflicted muscle, extracting from it one of the syringes (Luckily she had pulled it out before the deadly contents could enter her system) She would see nothing on first glance when she whirled around. It wasn't till she heard a low ambient hiss were eyes brought to the ground, revealing her assailant.

In it's general frame, it appeared quite a bit like a common chimp, nearly equaling it in size as well. It's flesh, bright red with scabs and sores _everywhere_, almost looked as though it were melting away from the rest of it's body, hanging off in full inches over some particular parts. Arranged in sloppy rows all along it's back were the needles, large enough to be confused with turkey-baisters. Though disturbing enough with this description, the face was the more frightening feature among the rest. It's cheeks sunk deep into the skull, making it look severely starved, yet the mouth was carved into a wicked grin. Taking place of eyes were none other than it's very weapon of choice.

It seemed odd how the creature waited for some time before leaping for it's quarry, almost as though it had _intended_ to throw her off. Raven in response lifted her leg, bringing her foot to hit home in the center of the twisted little abomination's chest.

The syringe beast was sent flying in reverse, colliding against the ground forcefully, but it wasn't long before it recovered, swiftly hopping back to it's feet.

Rather than attempt another surprise-jump, the chimp-like horror reached toward it's back and plucked out a needle. Raven, anticipating it's front, breathed the by now familiar sorcery words. Just as it was flung toward her, clearly intended to land between the eyes, the needle became enveloped in the black midst then was turned in the opposite direction and fired back. Obviously not expecting this, the monster was nailed in the forehead, stumbling backward in reaction. Not wanting to give it the opportunity to gain the upper-hand, Raven seized the small nightmare by one of it's scrawny arms and violently jerked it upward, leveling it's midsection with the barrel of her gun.

"This is for _them_." She growled angrily before blasting a round into it's abdomen, reducing it to a bloody, gaping hole. Not wanting to simply leave the carcass in the same place where _she _happened to be, Raven dangled it over the guard-rail and let it drop. In a livid, sadistic manner, hoping that it was still alive so it could feel the pain of crashing against the cement below.

Once finished with her handiwork, she returned to the bodies of the brave men whom had rescued her. After looking over them apologetically, the titan kneeled down and gently swept her hand over one an officer's face, closing his previously wide open eyes.

"You did the best you could..." She murmured in a shaken voice.

Not knowing of any prayers she could speak fluidly, Raven begun to word the first thing that came to her mind-a touching piano-tuned song she had by chance heard on the radio few days prior,

"_Do you hear the jet plane yawning miles across the sky?_

_Do you hear the garbage truck back down the boulevard, setting off car alarms as it passes by?_

_Do you hear the static of one thousand de-tuned radios?_

_Shut the window, love. Keep the world outside...I don't want to think about anyone...but..._

_The footsteps are getting louder, drowning out the sound of the rain as it knocks on the windowsill..._

_I'm not answering the phone-let it ring. Lately I've been feeling like a falling bomb...._

_The ground is getting closer and the sky is falling down..._

_This song has been brought to you by....a falling bomb...."_

Nothing else could be done. As much as she hated to leave them there, there was no time to do something more appropriate, and even if there had been, she probably couldn't muster the courage to do it anyway. As she begun to pick herself up, a genuinely unbearable racket begun to explode from the base of the tower. After wincing slightly, Raven gazed over the rail to see what beasts left alive beginning to climb toward her.

"You..." She begun in an unsteady voice, cracking at the schemes with seething hatred.

"_You'll just never give up....will you_?" A vicious snarl slipped from her lips, so consumed by rage that she herself hardly recognized it. Before she could control herself, her blood begun to boil. Her muscles tensed. The last thing she would remember before slipping into darkness was shrieking in a vividly demonic voice, "IT'S YOUR TURN NOW!"

The rain began to come down in piercing sheets, not allowing her to remain in an unconscious state for a little longer then ten minutes. The only voice that entered her mind during the short window of time was that of Horace, speaking on a subject that she, even if awake, wouldn't have known of,

_It's tough bein' on the inside when you've left behind a beautiful girl....The thought that she's bangin' someone else tears at your mind nearly every damn day....I couldn't take the thought...just the possibility that she was foolin' around....no one turns their cheek on me....no one...._

-End Chapter 4-

Author's note

Well, four down, a completely undetermined number to go. Due to the week making it's return and me having to go back to the salt-mines as a result, my frequency in posting chapters is going to be slightly muddled. Very sorry, but ya' gotta' do what ya' gotta' do....


	5. The end has no end?

"Frailty"

Chapter 5- "The end has no end?"

_You were soft before...brittle...weak...and yet you thought you were so much more...It's nice for someone like me, getting to see how defenseless you truly are..._

Her eyelids begun to creak open. Blurred and distorted, the world almost looked _sane _through eyes that were not yet fully functional. She had awoken in the center of the workout grounds, face-down in a mixture of rainwater and blood. Sputtering and coughing the concoction from her mouth, Raven slowly sat up, sliding her calves underneath her.

It took full minutes of rubbing her eyes and clearing her throat of the liquids before she could adjust to her surroundings. It was quiet. Daftly quiet. The only noise was the constant sound of rain splattering against the ground, it's gentle eclectically doing a trinket of soothing her troubled mind. In a way, she had come-to running on auto-pilot, almost immediately remembering where she had been headed.

"Past the last court..." The girl murmured while clearing a soaked lock of amethyst hair from her forehead. She knew she had been twice bitten by Carnate's curse, but was doing everything possible to keep from thinking of it. There would be time for that once she had found Dr.Killjoy, wherever he hermitted himself on this doomed island. Groveling over her own demons at the present moment would only allow her hunters to gain on her.

She had not noticed it till she staggered to her feet and surveyed the area, but in the time of which Raven had more-or-less peacefully slumbered, all of the spot-lights that were positioned on the watch-towers had gone dead. The only illumination that premised her to see was a bizarre out-burst of flames that dotted the recreation area, bathing much of the ground around them in a dull, red light. It was strange enough that the on-going downpour was failing to extinguish the numerous wildfires, but what bewildered the titan more was questioning how on Earth they had _gotten _there.

Realizing that her inquisitive thoughts were slowing her down, Raven shrugged the spontaneous blazes off and proceeded toward her next, and only destination--the building that lay beyond the basketball court.

Attempting to guess where she would be lead to seemed like a pointless enterprise, but as she ventured toward the door that lay just beyond the fenced-in court, Raven could not keep her mind from forging expectations. Maybe a parking lot, or another visitor's area. Perhaps just a dirt road that led far off into the distance...

Ironically, when the door was opened and Raven stepped across the thresh-hold, she found herself in the very place that was at the _bottom_ of the list of her anticipations. An aged, beaten up hallway that stretched forward a short distance, then swung off to the left. Tacked to the wall opposite the entry-way door was a worn sign reading, "Cell Block-D"

The bitter truth had been un-vieled in that instant. She was no closer to escaping this place now then when she had been separated from Harvey. This wasn't a prison. This was a bottomless abyss.

As she had many times before in the night, Raven released her doubts, disappointment, and every other form of negative emotion out through a long, heavy sigh and pressed on. The hall would turn to the left once more before coming to an end, sporting a closed steel door in the center of the wall. The room that lay behind it was something a little less redundant than what she had been seeing lately, to say in the least.

Roughly twenty square-feet in it's size, the place was furnished with plain wooden benches that were arranged in rows of six, almost dividing their accommodations in half. Against the walls in series of three were fairly recent looking foot-lockers, which Raven wasted no time ran-sacking. At first there had been nothing worth noticing, much less taking with her. It wasn't until she came to the third compact storage did the mood of the moment change--for the worst.

Inside was wide variety of common tools. Ratchets, hammers and tube-cutters that were in no _identifiable _sync. After sweeping aside a pile of bolts, she caught sight of a sticky note, still half-way buried underneath the plethora of instruments. With her curiosity struck, Raven seized an available corner and jerked it out of the foot-locker. The contents were simple, but more than enough to steal the air from the room. Scrawled in an almost childish hand-writing were the words,

_Look behind you!_

Raven didn't immediately respond, too frightened to do such. Slowly, she gazed over her shoulder, revealing a painfully familiar face.

Hermes.

There was no way of positively identifying how he had gotten there, but it was clear that the note found in the foot-locker was his doing.

The apparition was dormant with his arms crossing his chest. Identical to the last encounter, a stoic demeanor hung about him heavier than the green midst that he was confined inside.

"You!" Raven gasped while backing away.

..._There is far more to this island than simply escaping it..._

The spirit murmured while floating toward the door that would persist the journey.

_....But I'm sure that you have realized that by now....even if you have been cleansed of Carnate's curse, would you be able to continue living with such a tainted mind?_

Raven raised her eyebrows thoughtfully at the question, but didn't dare answer, granting Hermes the permission to continue. He spoke once more before simply dissipating into the air.

_Your suffering will be perpetual....Regardless of the solutions you find...the end has no end...._

Raven stared blankly for full minutes, speechless. She was unable to avoid thinking of what was said. Even if she _had_ escaped, could normal life in Gotham persist after everything that was seen and done?

Author's note

I would like to apologize for the length of this particular chapter. I did this for several reasons.

My only real intention for this chapter was to introduce a new fear.

It's been rather long since I last up-dated, thus I didn't want to make the people who read my fic think I had simply given up

Trying to fluidly continue the chapter in my usual 18K size would have been particularly difficult with what is to happen in the near future.


	6. You are the quarry

"Frailty"

Chapter six- "You are the quarry"

It was quite easy, if not impossible to refrain from getting what Hermes would say stuck in even the strongest-willed mind. However, the actual impact of the ghost's words were seldomly the true reason for this. Normally his placid attitude, or the way of which he spoke was the true culprit, but on this occasion the controversy that he had sparked stemmed from all _but _the latter.

Raven could have heard it from anything, even another human being, and she wouldn't have been left any less perturbed. It was a question she had not bothered to ask herself this entire time and now that it had been introduced in the _worst _way, it tore at her mind so extensively that even when she entered the D-level cell block, which was easily the largest area encountered, hardly anything was noted.

The second floor of this rectangular, massively-proportioned room actually occupied a little more than ten percent. Assuming the shape of a backwards L, it extended out from the rear and right walls roughly ten feet before giving way to a near fifteen-foot drop to the first level. At the corner was a concrete staircase that connected the two floors. Lining the upper-level "walkway", if you will, was a series of un-populated cells. Possessing just enough attention to realize that the second story of which she had entered through was a dead-end, Raven begun to venture down the stairwell.

A low hissing that seemed to infiltrate Raven's earshot from all around snapped her from a particularly dire train of thought just as she stepped unto the first floor. Not a breath was wasted raising the magnum and surveying the area. To her left was a nearly bare brick wall. What sparse items decorated it's rough surface were bland and didn't appear to be useful in any manner. Directing her attention to the right, she beheld another wall that was occupied with numerous holding cells. In result of being directly underneath the walkway above, their contents were engulfed in shadow. If someone or some_thing_ were inside waiting for her, there would be no possible way to tell from the point of which she stood.

"Now or never...."

With much understandable reluctance, Raven begun to approach the wall. The sidearm had fallen to her waist, but remained clutched in such a way that it could still easily be risen to a blast-ready position in a matter of milli-seconds. A foot shy of her destination, a unique crashing sound rung out from the dark depths of the cell. A moment later a nearly foot-long pipe flew between the bars of the door and came to rest at Raven's feet. The magnum was raised as a reflex, but the thought of returning fire quickly died when a shaken human voice cried out, "D..Don't come...any closer!"

Again, her weapon fell to the side. Squinting harder through the darkness, she could see the very faint outline of a crouched human being.

"Hello?" The titan called back, "Are you alright?"

"Stay away! Stay away from me!!!"

Raven relented slightly, surprised at the man's shrill voice, but did not give up, "Look, I'm not one of them, okay?"

"What's the difference? _He _was human too, and he still kills us! You're probably working for him, aren't you?"

"What _are _you talking about?!?"

A brief episode of the man's sniveling took hold of the air before he replied, "The warden doesn't care about what's going on! He'd sooner kill one of _us _than those things....and their everywhere in here, man! They're _everywhere_!"

Naturally puzzled by his abrupt subject change, Raven opened her mouth to query further, but did not receive the chance to speak before the terrible and all too familiar racket of blades striking concrete begun to rip through the silence. With no eyes in the back of her head to reveal the occurrence behind her, Raven whirled around and leveled the magnum.

If the phrase 'Shocked to death' had been forged in literal terms, the dark titan would have been several times dead in that instant. Like a massive swarm of insects, the machete beasts entered the room through every window, door and hole that made surprisingly bursting in a possibility. In a matter of seconds, both floors were covered. The panic over-rode Raven's logical thought pattern and in turn, she begun to blindly fire into the mass of beasts. With so little free space, missing was rather difficult. However, the shots that connected with a target rarely hit where it counted--the head. Regardless, she continued to fire till an audible _click _was all that arose from the barrel.

After scanning the gun quizzically, she plaintively muttered to herself, "Out of ammo...." and started to backpedal away. Just as the notion of taking flight arose, the nearest beast violently lashed out, feinting with both arms and driving a dodging Raven backward till she met with the cell-door. After crouching to avoid yet another slash, the man's voice echoed from behind the door, "Here, use this!" With that, a double-barreled shotgun slid out. Sparing no time to consider the kick-back, she seized the gun with both hands, pointed the barrel(s) at a ninety-degree angle and pumped off a round.

The butt of the shotgun slammed against her arm with such force that a bruise being left behind as a mommento was blatantly imminent. In exchange, when the powerful blast met with the abdomen of her assailant, everything from it's waist up exploded into a confetti of blood, bone fragments and organs. With no torso to control them, the legs briefly stumbled about before collapsing to the floor.

After discharging another two rounds to clear her path, Raven sprang to the right and fully recovered to her feet. Exiting the shade of the second floor/walkway, she left herself open for the beasts that had entered through the ceiling. In one sloppy, uncoordinated motion, they dove for her, landing on-top of their very own. Taking in the enemy reinforcements, Raven gauged the distance between her and them, then un-loaded the shotgun of two more rounds. Pleasantly surprised that the blast brought the intended targets and roughly three more the ground. The loss did not slow down nor intimidate her foes. Mindlessly, they continued to close the distance.

Realizing that they had grown far too close, Raven ducked low and rolled in reverse, squeezing the trigger of the shotgun the moment she had recovered to her knees. In succession with every shot fired, a multitude of beasts crumpled from the sloppy front-line and vanished behind the legs of their still living and moving peers.

Not sure of how much ammunition this gun had started with, Raven begun to pay particular attention to how she aimed, and the aftermath of the shot.

She fired once- The blast met with the left arm of the target, blowing not only the said limb off, but also much of the left portion of it's torso, morphing it's chest to a crescent shape. This particular shot also caught the head of another beast, promptly bringing it to the floor.

She fired twice- A direct hit to the target's head. In reaction, the cranium exploded, riddling the cage that entrapped it with blood, bits of skull and brains. In some mysterious manner, this blast also brought down roughly three others (Perhaps striking the shoulder) crumbling a quarter of the front-line.

She fired a third time, then quickly followed this up with another blast- The first shot plowed through nearly ten full beasts, ravaging the points of impact. The second shot finished off those who had fallen victim to it's predecessor.

The playing-field had not been leveled, but with appropriate blasts taken, the once prominent horde of beasts had now been reduced to a meager five. Caked in a mixture of blood and perspiration, Raven, not averting her eyes from the remaining five foes, reached toward the ground and produced a blade, belonging to one of the many monsters that had been taken down in the hail of gun-fire. Raising her arm then arching it behind her, she placed aim and flung the blade forward with a surprising burst of strength.

It sailed through the air, end-over-end before catching deep into the throat of the closest beast. Dark blood immediately begun to seep out of the wound and wash over the imbedded blade. There was no shriek of pain or ungainly movement. It simply crumpled to the floor.

With no reluctance, the remaining four begun to rush toward her with only one command in mind--_kill_.

"Alright!" Raven hissed through clenched teeth while raising the shotgun. "A blast for each of you!"

The first monstrosity to threateningly raise a blade was met by a powerful shotgun blast to the midsection, slinging it to the ground in two blood-washed segments. Following suit, Raven discharged another round that met with the collar-bone of another beast, reducing the enemy count to a hopeful two.

With the gap closed, both creatures swung for their prey, but were met only be the other's offending blade. Raven, whom had cleverly anticipated such a front and rolled out of the way, watched from nearly ten yards away as her puzzled opponents gathered their priorities. With the circumstances _almost _jerking her lips into a thin smile, she placed aim and finished them off.

There was no time to muse over the outstanding victory, or for that matter, even make a body-count before the man locked in the cell behind her begun to cheer, "Alright! Kick ass! I was wrong, you'd never work for that worthless son of a bitch, Stidewall!" After starting a bit at the man's out-burst, Raven turned to face him. He had not exited his accommodations, but was now in full view. An inmate--no doubt about it. His worn orange uniform detailed everything she needed to know.

"What are you talking about?" She asked while approaching him, "Who's Stidewall?"

The in-mate relented as she grew closer, as if his full trust had not yet been gained.

"Huh? You mean to tell me you don't know?"

Raven gesturally shook her head.

"He's the warden of this prison. When all of this shit happened, he went off his fuckin' nut and started slaughtering all the inmates and haulin' em' outside...I watched two of my best friends get capped in the head by that damn maniac!"

"How'd you live?"

He shrugged before replying, "Guess he doesn't bother to check under the beds."

With peace restored, Raven took a double take on the room. There was a lone door, beside which was another plate-glass window, looking into what she could only assume was a control-room of sorts.

"Can I maybe open up your cell from that room over there?" She nodded toward the door, but the in-mate promptly begun to detest, "No, I'm not coming out....It's safer in here n' besides....I got epilepsy...If I had a seizure, I'd only be weighing you down..."

Raven stared blankly. Almost _confused _at his reaction, as she couldn't even fathom the thought of sitting helplessly still in this place.

"Are you sure you don't want to..."

He quickly nodded his head and cut her off, "Uh huh. I'll be okay. Uh...here..." The inmate ducked down behind his bed and extracted a box of shells. Handing them to her through the door, he begun to explain, "When Stidewall started wasting the others, one of his guards left that shotgun and some shells behind, I fished em' in here with that pipe...." He gestured toward the metallic tube that had been flung at her earlier. Raven accepted the shells and begun the confusing process of reloading the shotgun. As she went about doing this in a 'Trial by error' manner, the in-mate pointed toward the door that her eyes had just been fixed on.

"That way's the only way outta' this prison, but I'm pretty sure you'd have to get through Stidewall first..." The carton of shells nearly fell to the floor when this particular remark flooded the titan's earshot.

"Wait...you mean he'd try to kill _me _too?!?"

The in-mate nodded his head solemnly. "You don't look like no prisoner, but you don't look like no C.O either, n' those are the only guys the crazy bastard trusts anymore. I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet he'd sooner blow yer' head off then let you get out alive."

Raven shook her head despairingly as she got this information straight.

"How...stupid..." She brought her gaze back to the in-mate. There wasn't a snow-cone's chance in Hell she'd attempt to debate with a man that had been serving time in a maximum security prison, but it was worth one more shot...

"Are you absolutely _sure _you don't want to tag along? Once I leave this room, I won't be coming back..."

The in-mate smiled reassuringly while giving a slight nod of his head.

"I'll be okay...Even if I don't make it outta' here alive, all I had to live for was my little ole' ma' anyway...you go on. Get outta' here."

She felt the need...no, the moral _obligation _to object, but stuffed it down. She thanked him one last time for his invaluable assistance, wished him well, then headed for the doorway. Closing the door behind her and leaving a human being alive with the knowledge that his chances of survival were slim to none was the hardest thing Raven had ever done, not only here, but within the course of her lifetime. And despite the fact that there was _nothing _she could have done, she already hated herself for it.

The door of which she had walked through emptied into a room that's proportions could not have exceeded fifteen square feet. Despite it's general small size, it was furnished with a leather love seat, a table and matching potted plant. Adding to this were two doors, excluding that of which she had entered through. Above one was a sign, reading "Control rooms- Authorized personnel only"

Knowing that this was a dead-end, she turned toward the other unlabeled door and pushed it open.

She was led into a dimly lit corridor that stretched far off into the distance. The nearest door on her right quickly caught her attention. The sign that had been hung in the center distinctly read  
"Entrance to supply-depot/ Eastern wing exit"

Her heart skipped a beat in anticipation, but just as her hand met with the smooth surface of the push-door, a voice panicked voice rung out from behind it, "Oh shit, man! He's gonna' kill us! He's really gonna' kill us!" Not a moment later, it was met by another much deeper and slightly more placid voice, "Shut up! Don't let him know yer' scared! That's exactly what he fuckin' wants!"

Stealing her nerves, she plowed through the door--to find herself in yet _another _compact room, only differing from the last in the lack of furnishings and the window positioned across from the entrance door.

Raven gasped and had to fight the urge to slip back behind the door when she became witness to what lay behind the window. Hanging upside down, directly in front of plate glass, as though to greet someone who had decided to enter the supply depot were two prone forms of in-mates.

Upon her making a rather noisy entrance, one of them hanging men peered over his shoulder.

"Hey!" He cried in surprise. "Hey, you! Get in here, quick! You gotta' cut us down before--"

He was cut off by the other in-mate, a much larger black man, "Shut up, you damn fool! You keep this up n' he'll blast our asses for sure!"

Heeding the information, Raven made quick time of the next hallway that would lead her into the supply depot, a massive room that in truth, more-so resembled a hangar.

With the shrouding darkness and outstanding length-wise proportions, it was impossible to see the other end of the room. To her immediate right were the in-mates. They met eyes and the smaller white man instantly begun to ramble, "C'mon! Hurry up and get us down or Stidewall's gonna'...."

There was no time to finish before a wave of hot lead begun to sink into both men. After close to a half-minute of pummeling it's victims, the firing subsided. Following this, a voice filtered into the hangar-like room through a hidden intercom. In a heavy southern accent, it boomed, "The situation at hand does not concern me even _half _as much as the thought of any of these in-mates escaping from this prison. No one leaves Carnate without the permission of Jonathon Stidewall! And that goes double for you, little Missy!"

Feeling directly threatened, Raven prematurely called, "Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS." And in turn was blanketed in a dome of what one could only describe as a black light. Moments after this gambit was made, a wave of bullets came sailing toward her, stopping and falling just inches short of the force-field. Once more, the voice crackled over the P.A system,  
"Hah! That light show o' yer's won't work forever, little girl. When yer' in Stidewall's prison, you _are _the quarry!"

-End Chapter 6-

More rambling from the author

Well, after putting up with a frantic week, it look's like Ozzy's back in the saddle again. As I said before, my frequency in posting these chapters won't be quite as good as it once was, but I'm doing what I can with the time I have. Also, in the actual game you _did _fight the warden of the prison, however his name wasn't Stidewall. For lack of a long-term memory (To paraphrase, I forgot) I had to give him that.

Again, I'd like to take the time to thank everyone that's been leaving behind a review. I love hearing what the reader has to say, and will try to respond to it on the review dingus in the future (Now that I know I can do that)

-JackoMegane


	7. Murderer

"Frailty"

Chapter Seven- "Murderer"

Considering his massacre of other human beings in a frantic, bizarre time like this, the assumption that prison warden Jonathon Stidewall was _not _an intelligent individual wasn't lavishly far-fetched. Quite believable, really. Though it was an easy conclusion to draw, Raven had discovered this fact through a more personal form of experience.

A violent, bloody and _humane_ encounter that would etch itself in the sorceress' memory for many years to come, it begun the instant her shield of black magic dropped.

There was no way to tell when a new wave of bullets would make their lethal contact with an intended target, but it was quite easy to hear them being discharged. The second occasion of which Jonathan Stidewall placed aim and fired at his new prey was no exception. The rotating barrels of his stationary auto gattling-gun begun to squeal and groan in accordance with their abrupt circumnavigation. As it started to pick up speed, the first bullet exited from the top-most hole, emitting with it a deep, piercing _thoom _noise. In less than a second the entire room erupted into a flurry of gunfire, all aimed at one target--Raven.

The horrid symphony of racket that the auto-gun produced was more than enough warning to move, which the titan promptly adhered to. With no time to survey her surroundings for _proper _cover, Raven dodged behind the nearest solid object--a disorderly collection of crates. A breath later, the fleet of bullets came forcefully colliding with the concrete floor that she once stood on, giving birth to a whole _new _genre of wholesomely unbearable noise.

Though it made her wince, Raven kept her eyes open, knowing that she had to keep focused. Stidewall was stupid and predictable, but he had a state of the art piece of heavy-artillery backing him, which left even a Green Beret no room for error.

The hope that her venture behind the stock-pile of crates had gone un-noticed was particularly stale, thus it was no shocker when after close to a half-minute of pulverizing the floor, the gunfire begun to change courses, shifting in her direction. Reaching it's destination in a shorter window of time than Raven had expected, the auto-gun blasted into the first crate it came to, reducing it to splinters almost instantaneously. As a result, the number of available cover was reduced to four and she was pushed further back.

Even after this took place, the gun's ear-splitting screech did not subside. Relentlessly, it's flock of shells came to meet with their second target. This crate out-weighed it's predecessor by well over three pounds, which enabled it to survive Stidewall's merciless pummeling nearly ten seconds longer. After the sixth shot had been sustained, the frame gave way, leaving that of which it supported to collapse into a smoldering heap.

Three crates remaining. Time was running out and she knew it, but there didn't appear to be anything she could do. The nearest structure stable enough to withstand the power of Stidewall's auto-gun was an over-turned shipping cart, nearly forty yards away. Even if she flew, the odds that the distance could be traveled without sustaining injury were slim to none.

Hopeless as the situation was, Raven doubled her strategies to escape while retreating further into the depths of the crates. It couldn't end like this. Not here, not now. She couldn't have spent this entire time fighting an army of repulsive beasts only to die by Stidewall's hands. The irony alone would be enough to damn her to this island for eternity. As much as she hated the idea of putting another living, breathing human being to rest, if it called for it, there was nothing that would stop her. That seemed to be the way things were on Carnate. You weren't aloud to have morals if you wanted to survive. Never take your enemy into your conscience, because it was guaranteed that they weren't doing it with you. Outside of that, the only other rule was to _always _be prepared. Expect the un-expected and be overjoyed when it didn't come...

Her train of thought was snapped when the third crate abruptly busted to pieces, leaving only two behind. Grimacing, the sorceress crawled behind the last crate and awaited the second's fate. Her grim anticipations were not let down. After enduring only three blasts, it crumbled to the floor. A terrible thing to have happened, no doubt, however it left behind something pleasantly opposing to the ominous predicament--a steel box containing hand-grenades, neatly arranged in rows of three.

Raven's eyes widened and a gasp escaped her lips as the blatant plot formulated in her head.

_No....I couldn't possibly...._

She still couldn't see Stidewall's gun, much less the warden himself. It was a million to one that a grenade would even get _halfway _there.

_...But what choice do I have? It's that, or die not even trying..._

The hand-held explosives were a gamble, but they were all she had.

Just as the first bullet sank into the base of the crate she hid behind, Raven crouched and sprang forward, landing near the remains of the second crate in a roll. (An evasive maneuver she had learned while watching a movie called "True Lies") It took less than a second to recover to her feet, seize a grenade from the box and dash forward, keeping her head low. Realizing his prey's completely un-expected gambit, Stidewall re-focused his aim and brought the steady stream of bullets back to their target. This was Raven's cue. Channeling all available strength into her right arm, she pulled the pin from the grenade and flung it forward, screaming with the strain.

The explosive sailed through the air end-over-end before erupting a few feet shy of it's target. Stidewall, who had been utilizing the auto-gun from the confined safety of a small depot office, was slung to the ground as the massive explosion rattled the four walls surrounding him.

The warden lay still on his back for full minutes, praying that nothing had been severely damaged, but his hopes were quickly shot down when he painfully shifted his forearms underneath him to support his torso, enabling him to see the remains of his once prized and highly lethal auto-gun. The tri-pod that supported it had been mangled and twisted, leaving two of the three legs completely snapped in half. The rotating barrel had been cracked and on-top of the gun's base was a particularly small fire that whipped and cracked about threateningly. All of these things conspired to grant the auto-gun the status-earned title of S.O.L.

Groaning more out of frustration for losing his state of the art weapon than the searing pain that shot through his legs, Stidewall gradually climbed to his feet and lightly surveyed the damage. He snickered slightly as the old phrase "Good news for people who love bad news" visited his mind.

His stationary gun was royally fucked. The office itself had a rectangular fifteen-by-ten foot plate glass on the left wall that looked out into the corridor that led into the next set of hallways. The explosion had shattered it completely and left it's shards scattered about the floor. The lights recessed in the ceiling had been busted, casting him into a dim light that made a surprise attack hard to forebode, and the person that was to blame for all of this was _still _alive, lurking about somewhere in the shipping hangar, most likely right outside his office.

The only bright side he had left to look on was the fact that he still had a side-arm holstered and strapped to his waist; a forty-four magnum. The infamous "Dirty Harry" gun. One shot from this indisputably powerful fire-arm, and the victor was decided. That was all it took.

Thinking of all these things, some hopelessly dire and others good, a smirk crossed the warden's lips, which quickly morphed into a full-fledged ear-to-ear beam. The playing field had just been leveled, and he always loved an even fight.

"A good plan, little girl..." He breathed while approaching the exit from the office, keeping the forty-four leveled.

"I admit, I had no idea what was gonna' happen, ya' got me. You're a pretty clever kid..." His hand gripped the knob.

"It's almost gonna' be a shame..." It slowly begun to turn.

"_WHEN I KILL YOU!_" Abruptly, Stidewall burst through the door, raised the magnum and whirled completely around, hoping to catch his enemy in mid-motion, however he was greeted by nothing.

It took a full five minutes of confirming that there was no present danger before he would grow terribly confused. There was no possible way the mysterious girl could have escaped. He had locked down both entry and exit of the shipping depot using a console inside the office. She _had _to be somewhere in here, cowering behind the clutter, but surely she would have made some kind of sound by now.

"Come on now, little girl..." He started, his voice echoing throughout the otherwise eerily quiet hangar, "Don't play games with me....."

Hesitantly, he begun to venture further out, completely un-aware that his opponent was sitting high up in one of the rafters on the ceiling, carefully watching every move he made.

The prison warden looked every bit as Southern as he sounded. More notable was the striking resemblance he bore to General Custer. He stood a some six and a half feet tall and had a definably large gut that, even from her point of view, Raven could easily see. Crowning his head was a crop of wavy blond hair that spilled down to his shoulders, on-top of which he sported a straw, pale-beige cowboy hat. His face, in the midst of in apparent shaving-neglect, was rather narrow and chiseled, despite his heavy-set frame. A silver necklace dangled down to the center of his chest, bearing a small pendant/cross that led the eye to a plain-white button-down Versachi shirt, over which he wore a faded brown vest.

Belted and wrapped tightly around his waist were a pair of Wranglers that hugged to his legs tighter than celefame.

When he finally grew to a close proximity from underneath her, Raven retorted to his remark, "Who's _really _playing the games, Stidewall?"

The warden quickly rose his magnum and scanned the area in response, but still found nothing. The voice itself seemed to have no origin. It simply echoed about the room. With a certain cord of anxiety struck, he was shot for a reply, thus Raven continued, "Me, the one who's just trying to escape? Or _you_, the one who _knows _he's not the right strain to survive, so instead he tries to take everyone else down with him...."

"_DAMN LIAR!!!_" Stidewall, vexed by his enemy's venture and snapped from the trance, bellowed and fired aimlessly ahead of him.

"Oh, c'mon, Stidewall, like that's _really_ going to shut me up!" Raven fired back when the shooting subsided. "You did a pretty good justice by admitting the truth to yourself, but this isn't the answer. I'm asking you nicely, let me out, and we can pretend this _never _happened..."

Her plan seemed to be going out well. Jonathan Stidewall was a human being, and doing him in was last on the list of acts she wanted to perform, now or ever. While taking cover behind the crates, his reason for trying to kill her became quite obvious and from there she begun to lay out her plans to mentally break him.

"..._Never_..." He growled in an almost inaudible tone. Naturally unable to hear him, Raven pressed on, "What did you just say? Speak lou--"

"_I SAID NEVER, DAMN IT, NEVER!!!_" Not completely sure of what he was doing, Stidewall raised the forty-four to the ceiling and let three bullets fly. The simple-minded warden would never know the impact of his erratic, rage-driven action in that moment.

The first and second shots whizzed past Raven's face and pierced the ceiling, easily startling her. She scooted back in shock, but too late realized that a maneuver of that degree could not be made without a dire consequence. Seconds later she was plummeting toward the concrete floor, unable to get her barrings straight enough to catch herself with levitation.

Raven struck the floor with an audible, echoing _thud._ Seconds later, the shotgun followed suit.Her shoulders, which had been the main point of impact, promptly begun to grow numb. Her hunter wasted no time approaching her, a sickeningly sadistic grin streaked across his face. He stopped a few feet short of Raven's prone form and raised the magnum, placing aim between her eyes.

"You were a challenge...Lord, how I thought I'd die..." He confessed. "Because of that, I'll let you have yer' last few words, but make em' quick..." His fatal error had been made. In one breath, she gasped, "AzarathmetrionZINTHOS!" and took telepathic control of the steel shipping cart that lay roughly twenty yards away from them. All too suddenly, the large cart smashed into Stidewall from behind, flinging him toward the very girl he was about to shoot. Doing her best to ignore the pain that had spread throughout her back, Raven rolled out of the way and recovered to her knees, blindly groping for the shotgun.

By the time the sorceress' hand wrapped around the handle of the two-handed firearm, Stidewall had wrestled out from underneath the cart and was well on his way to completely recovering.

Knowing not another second could be sparred, Raven shot her other hand to the middle of the shotgun then turned onto her back, catching her enemy just after standing to his feet, the forty-four only half-raised. For nearly a minute, Raven remained perfectly still, failing to realize she had won the draw. When at last that inevitable moment occurred, she hissed, "Drop it!"

Stidewall paused briefly before letting the magnum plummet to the floor, landing with a loud _clunk_. His look of sheer disbelief terribly clashed with Raven's victorious, smug, yet still subtle smirk.

"Don't worry about it too much...I said it once and I'll say it again, I _don't _want to kill you...."

Using only her legs, Raven begun to pull herself up.

"We can just go our own ways and pretend we never met eachoth--" After managing to land one of her feet flat on the ground, the titan lost her balance and begun to tumble over. As her back came to meet with the concrete floor once more, her finger jerked down on the trigger of the shotgun. The recoil of the blast hit her arm with such force that the gun flew free from her hand and came to land a few feet away. The distinctly clear _thoom _of the shot echoed about the room hauntingly longer than it should have.

As much as she wanted to, Raven didn't stay down. Just after fully meeting the floor, she sprung back up to her knees and took in the sight of Stidewall's grounded form, a dark pool of blood slowly engulfing the ground around him. Her heart begun to pound profusely as she crawled toward him. Reaching his side, she nudged him in the ribs and received no reaction.

"...Stidewall?"

Nothing. He lay perfectly still.

Raven's mouth begun to quiver and a feeling of dread grew within her as what she had done became painfully clear. Finally arriving at his head, the mortal wound was brought into view. The blast had predominantly connected with his neck, leaving it intact by only a few threads of skin.

She knelt over him and examined the devastating impact for a brief moment more. The fact that the sad incident was a sheer accident and nothing more didn't seem to register as the dark sorceress covered her face and wept, "Stidewall! Oh Gawd, I killed him! I killed a _human being_!"

-End chapter 7-

Rambling

At first, I was quite skeptical about trying to get the battle with Stidewall exclusively in an entire chapter, but as I wrote, things seemed to be carrying themselves rather nicely, so I figured "What the Hell" and persisted with the idea. This chapter may have been a few K's (And by a few, I mean a _few_) shorter, but it'll really help me kick the next one off, and more often than not, that's how I aim to ideally end a chapter, as there is nothing that is more of a pain in the ass than sitting in front of the blank computer screen trying to think of a halfway _decent _sentence to start things off with.

Moving along, I believe it was wordbearer that predicted this fic to end pretty soon. My good friend, I assure you this—your prediction was dead wrong. I still have _quite _a bit more to get done before this fic can be proclaimed finished, but I intend to stay strong with it. When I took this on, I had no _real _idea of what I was doing, but I knew this, it would be rather lengthy (At least compared to the other meaningless crap I write) so before I close, keep this in mind; with this chapter finished, I am only halfway done, if even that, but I enjoy every second of it.

-JackoMegane


	8. A way out of Hell

"Frailty"

Chapter eight- "A way out of Hell"

The ear-splitting racket of metal being rended and slashed open by a horde of blades echoed through-out the shipping depot. The machete' beasts were slicing their way through the walls and ceiling, relentlessly persisting in their hunt.

Despite the imminence of a fatal confrontation, Raven did not abort from her position, knelt over her victim's corpse. The boyishly short amethyst hair that crowned her head hung over her face, concealing the look of grief and self-loathing that replaced a once smugly victorious expression.

From a third-party's perspective, it was the scene of someone who was battling against their own flawed morality--and steadily losing not only the fight, but everything they knew.

Raven no longer saw the world through the eyes of a heroine that protected the innocent and punished those that that would dare to violate or harm the latter . She now perceived her surroundings through none other than the distorted vision of what she once brought to justice.

Like the impatient knock on the door of a dead man, the violent slashing begun to grow louder and more insistent, causing the already gaping holes in the ceiling to nearly triple in size. It was only a matter of time before the room was penetrated, and the army of monstrosities that could have descended only from the nightmares of a madman would enter. Intimidating as this may have been, Raven did not move, her gaze fixed onto the cold, lifeless eyes of Stidewall. Needless to say, the late prison warden had not been prepared for the firearm to go off. As a result, his final resting position had locked him into a perpetual staring contest with the ceiling. Though severely shaken, Raven's eyes had yet to produce anything more than an guilt-induced gawk. It was not until they met with the cross strung to the man's necklace did her mouth begin to quiver and her heart sunk like a weight. For whatever reason, the silver pendant brought the full realization of her actions into mind.

_This man, this man that was nothing more than scared and retaliating in the best way he knew how, was dead. And it was all her fault. _

She closed her eyes tight, forcing her emotions out through a steady stream of tears.

-Series of corridors neighboring the shipping depot-

Harvey Alding flicked a half-depleted cigarette into a trash-can that happened to be conveniently near-by, having just re-entered the prison. Where most C.O's would have abandoned the age-old rule of refraining from smoking in a public place at a time like this, Alding had always been a stick to the guide-lines. Within the past forty minutes that he had been separated from Raven, the corrections officer had already found his way out of the prison and sent a distress signal to the nearest coast guard, courtesy of a radio capable of transmitting and receiving wide-range frequencies.

As much as he may have wanted to stay in the safe-haven and wait for a response, there was a certain indigo-tressed sorceress that returned him to his place of employment. The possibility that the girl introduced as Raven had already escaped was every bit as ample as the chance that she was still trapped inside. An ex-marine that had found himself on the front-lines of operation Desert Storm, Alding believed whole-heartedly in the old militaristic phrase 'Never leave another soldier behind' and thus had no intention of even _risking_ Raven's death.

His plan was simple enough. Enter the penitentiary through the shipping depot exit and perform a sweep of every corridor, cell and room till he A, found the mysterious amethyst-hared girl, or B, continued to search till he wound up back in the visitor check-in room, where they had been forced to split up under the influence of a bizarre short-lived earthquake. Should the latter occur, the most logical reaction was to back-track till he again found himself at the shipping depot.

Of course, Alding knew that none of this would blow over easily. With his broken arm cradled in a make-shift cast comprised of the discarded business coat, it was obvious that it would be far more difficult to defend himself. All the right-handed officer could do to forebode an attack was hope for the best and thank _God _that the snapped limb had indeed been his left arm.

After taking a minute to reflect over the generalization of his plans, Alding's eyes scanned over the hallway he had entered into. The door that led outside looked to have been positioned in the very center of the outlined corridor. Dimly lit and furnished with little to no decoration, it stretched off in both directions, the left ending with a uni-sex restroom (A spectacle that Alding had just then become witness to) and the right breaking off to the west. Directly across from the corrections officer was a slightly ajar door, it's inner edge stained with blood.

"Terrific..." He bitterly grumbled while advancing. "First God-damn't room I come to looks like something from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre..."

After being issued a firm push to it's center, the door obediently swung open, granting access to a room of about ten-by-fifteen feet, obscenely smothered with a crimson bodily fluid Alding had become rather prone to seeing. The wall on the far right end was occupied by a window looking out into a room that, though not very large in terms of width, climbed downward so far that space for two stories were easily saved. Despite having only visited this particular wing of the prison once or twice in the three years he had worked here, Alding quickly recognized it to be the rations storage. Cluttered nearly to the ceiling with unlabeled crates and stock-shelves, the corrections officer struggled to understand how there could possibly be any room for a ladder that would lead him to the ground. After dedicating another few seconds to peer further out the window, hoping to see the floor, Alding shrugged lightly.

_Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it..._

Intending to do just that, Alding spun toward the door. A foot short of the threshold, a slight glint caught him from the corner of his eye

Stationed diagonally across the right corner of the room was an aged cabinet. Each shelf was home to a multitude of trivially useless objects, however on the middle shelf there was something that powerfully stood out from the others. An Uzi, carefully polished and laid on it's side, brightly reflected it's surroundings and rightfully forced a gasp from Alding's lungs. Careful not to slip up and brush the trigger, he seized the firearm by it's handle and raised it into the air, surprised at the heft. It was defiantly loaded.

_Illegal as Hell..._ He thought to himself while examining the base of the gun. _Why in God's name would we have something like this here? _

After determining that it was fully loaded, he gave the mystery of it's existence a mental shrug and stored it into a vacant holster on his belt. In the long run, what use was there in questioning a good thing? The more firepower he had, the merrier.

-The shipping depot-

The beasts flanked Raven from every conceivable direction, slowly closing what little distance remained between themselves and her. When had they gotten in? It didn't matter. The only thing of any pertinence in the sorceress' mind was the dire fact that she had taken the life of another human being. As they grew closer, her eyes wandered back over the prone form of Stidewall, almost hoping to see some sign of life. There came nothing. Tears again began to well up in her eyes, however before they could make contact with the pale white flesh of her face, Horace's familiar voice crackled into her mind.

_You had some good intentions for yourself in this place. Walk right on out, no tragedy, no despair, no nothin'...Too bad Carnate doesn't work that way...Ya' know, when I was convicted, they told me that if I behaved myself, the death penalty would get lifted. I went right on believing that till the day I was drug into the electrocution chamber...Just as they were strapping me into that Godamn chair, I learned a very important lesson about this island. _

_It strips you of everything. _

_Your pride, your dignity, your sense of well-being, you can kiss it all good-bye...but lemme' tell ya', I can't imagine ANYTHING sweeter than getting to walk out alive..._

It may have been the impact of his words that broke her trance. Perhaps it was the simple fact that he had spoken to her at all, but for whatever reason, when Horace's voice painfully faded, Raven whipped the tears that she was about to shed away and gazed toward the horde of monsters that stood mere feet from her. Without showing any determinable sign of emotion, she hefted the shotgun's barrel into and acute angle and smote the group of unfortunate beasts that just _happened _to be in front of her with a single, well-placed blast. With their limbs, bone fragments and entrails scattered throughout a small radius, a path toward Stidewall's office emerged.

It had been battered from the grenade assault earlier, but Raven determined that it was a _far _safer place to take cover and re-load than anywhere else in the hangar. After sparring a fraction of a second to scan the surrounding grounds for any un-expected surprises, she sprang forward.

Landing on her feet, Raven spun on her heel to face the pursuing brigade. In an attempt to slow them down, she fired twice, one instantly after the other. Much of the front-line fell, however no lives were taken. By the time the afflicted recovered, most of their peers had surpassed them, and the very prey that they once had the most prospect of killing was in a mad dash for the office. With little time sparred to clear the distance, Raven hurtled across the thresh-hold and took cover behind the nearest properly-sized object—a rectangular oak desk. Straining slightly, she tipped the table onto it's side and ducked behind it. With only a faint _prayer _that the gun had at least four rounds left, Raven raised above her cover and squeezed the trigger, discharging two rounds into a collection of assailants that had just arrived at the door-frame. The blast plowed through all that populated the frame, sending their recoiling, bleeding bodies flying in reverse, directly into the group behind them.

Reverting back to a ducked position, Raven begun to re-load the gun, working off memory from the last occasion. A half-minute passed before she slid the final bullet in. Though the plan was to repeat the process, using the cover as best to her ability, all intentions were dashed in an instant when one of the beasts flanked her from the right end of the table. Turning hastily, Raven squeezed off a round that's force sent the intruder soaring backwards. An audible _wunt _rung out when the creature bounced off the wall behind it and crashed against the ground, leaving behind a bloody imprint.

Though the invading freak-show had been fended off without incident, when Raven was available to check on the door-frame, she had made the rather horrifying discovery that more than half the office had been over-run, leaving only a three foot distance between her and the enemy. Shocked, frightened, but not defeated, she back-peddled away and accessed the situation calmly as she could.

She was in a space that, even when un-occupied, was considerably small—there were well over ten living beings in the office not including herself. This made dodging attacks very difficult, if not impossible. That qualified as the bad news.

The _good _aspect was the almost fully-loaded shotgun that remain clutched in her hands. A close-range, spread-fire type of gun, one shot would go quite far. The predicament was adjustable.

Keeping this in mind, she took one more step backward, braced herself and fired.

Just as the bullets expelled from the barrel, the office exploded into a spectacle of blood, limbs and intestines.

After briefly attempting to shake the crimson fluid that had sprayed against her face away, Raven

Leveled the barrels of the shotgun to begin firing anew, however before her finger could yank down on the trigger once more, she caught a motion of uncomfortably close proximity out the corner of her eye. Whirling in the movement's general direction, she raised the still smoking gun high into the air, keeping one hand on the base of the handle and the other wrapped tightly around the barrel.

Hardly a fraction of a second passed before the rusted blade of a machete' beast came sailing down toward her and bounced off the upheld gun, emitting an alarmingly loud _clank. _

Stepping backwards, Raven deflected two more downward cleaves before the horde she had once been driving out of the office caught up with her. Once swipe to the calve was all it took to bring the sorceress down.

Despite the afflicted limb being reduced to a laid-open, bloody mess, Raven continued to rail against her predators. Almost instantly after hitting the floor, she sought out the shotgun, which had been dropped during the violent altercation. It had landed a mere five foot distance away from her head, but with the severely injured leg beginning to grow quite numb, simply staying conscious without throwing up was a difficult task.

As fast as they could possibly move, both arms shot out in front of her and proceeded to drag the otherwise motionless body forward. She stopped abruptly when the distance between the gun and her hand had closed to no more than a select few inches. Stretching out all five fingers, Raven opted for the weapon's barrel and grimaced when she barely came up short. When the tip of her middle finger brushed against the stainless steel surface, it was easily calculated that at least another inch and a half would have to be traveled.

Swallowing hard, she gazed over her shoulder and groaned loudly at the sight of a beast standing directly over her, poised to strike. There was clearly no time to drag herself further.

On a snap decision (Or perhaps last resort), she planted both hands firmly to the floor and, using her uninjured leg, sprung forward. Toward the end of the lunge, she unexpectadly twisted off to the left, causing her to land on her shoulder, ribs and among everything else, wounded leg. A searing pain shot through every physical inch that came to collide with the concrete floor, however it was not enough to satiate her determination.

Grinding her teeth together and wincing the pain away, Raven swept the shotgun up with both hands and sparred no time to properly place aim before firing.

Her slashed open calve, the deafening symphony of a fired duo of bullets, and the creature's piercing screech were more than enough to make her gain the urge to turn the barrel on herself and pull the trigger once more. Just as she begun to teeter on the mental border of doing such, the collidescope of unbearable racket took an unexpected turn. The echo of the shotgun blast dissipated into the air and gave birth to a new kind of gunfire. Not nearly as loud as the shotgun and far more rapid, this mystery firearm's lullaby was exentuated by the shriek of it's victims, and the vulgar hollering of a familiar voice, "C'mon, ya' nut-less piece's of shit! You wanna' fuck with someone, fuck with me!"

Peering through the group of beasts that had at the moment turned their backs to her, Raven could see none other than Harvey Alding standing in the office doorframe, his left arm in a bloodied make-shift sling and a smoking fire-arm that looked to be some sort of sub-machine gun clutched in his right hand.

Easily evading an attack issued by a near-by beast, than mowing it down with a hail of bullets, the corrections officer could not have appeared more heroic through Raven's eyes, and as she witnessed the horde of merciless predators being plowed down and smote by a human being with only one active arm, refraining from smiling was the most conceivably difficult task she could remember doing.

Hardly even a minute following his arrival, Alding stood over a sea of spent shell casings and grounded, bleeding bodies, one of which he promptly recognized to be Raven. Gently setting the gun to the floor, he approached her, kicking numerous corpses out of his path. If her barrier of lacking emotion around other people had been broken and Raven had indeed curved her lips into a smile, it had long since faded when Alding arrived to her. As the corrections officer closed the distance between them and his eyes fell to her injury, he face-faulted.

"Jesus Christ...They got you pretty damned good."

Raven followed his gaze to her calve. The lengthy vertical gash nearly split the entire limb in half and dug so deep that pearly white bone was visible in multiple regions.

Had she attained some sort of gauge on the severity of the wound earlier, Raven may have taken it with a collected posture, but given this was her first free look, keeping not only her emotions, but her physical being in check was too steep a hill for her to climb. With a prompt response, her stomach begun to tie itself in a knot and a terrible queasy sensation begun to dominate her insides. Having an indication of what was about to come but not necessarily wanting to believe it, she attempted to swallow air—and almost immediately felt it being pushed back up. As much as the sorceress hated it, she knew she was about to throw up and in the end decided it was best to just accept the inevitable, get it over with and hope like Hell she wouldn't wind up dry-heaving.

Careful not to disturb her calve, Raven leaned over to the side and let her jaw drop. As if picking up the signal, her torso kicked forward slightly and subsequently a sour, scentless concoction begun to free-flow out. As she hacked and sputtered the vomit out, Alding kneeled down beside her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Get it all out, kid." He spoke in as gentle a tone as his military-molded voice could produce (Which in truth wasn't much). "You gotta' number done on you, but we'll figure something out. Good news, too. I got in contact with the coast-guard and..."

"Go without me." Raven managed between a series of heaves.

"...Huh?"

After a brief episode of hacking and coughing in the aftermath of her regurgitation, she started again on a completely different foot, "I know that Horace would have wanted me to keep going, but..." Words failed momentarily as her mind wandered back to Doctor Killjoy. After taking a deep, unsteady breath, she continued, "But I don't think I should...leave this place...not yet"

Harvey Alding was well known for having a short fuse and after hearing Raven's second set of words, lost his patience, "What _is _this happy horse-shit?" He balked, "What the Hell are you talking about?!?"

Raven maneuvered to look him in the eyes. "There's something wrong with me, Harvey..."

She replied, failing to accurately answer the question. "...And the only person that can help is on this island...."

-End Chapter 8-

Rambling from the author

Looking back at it, all I can do is produce a long, drawn out whistle and say, "Damn, have I been outta' it."

In truth, the dark, depressing stuff of this fic started to bring me down and while I have no intention of letting it go, I decided for my disposition's sake that I better start writing something a little more light-hearted on the side. That will hopefully be posted by next week. My apologies for the righteous tardiness of this particular chapter.

-JackoMegane


	9. Someday

"Frailty"

Chapter nine- "Someday"

"So...lemme' get this straight..." Harvey begun while tightly wrapping a bandage retrieved from a nearby cabinet around Raven's calve.

"You accidentally offed that damned maniac, Stidewall, and the guilt nearly got you killed, but at the same time you're saying that there's this vicious alter-ego growing inside you that in due time'll turn you into some starch-raving maniac if it isn't taken care of..."

Raven's eyes fell as her far-fetched tale was relayed to her. Indeed, she had spilled the whole thing to the only _lucid _companion she had acquired on this strange night. At that given time, her mentality had been one of, _I'm debating on whether or not I should even have the right to live, why the Hell not?_, but now hearing it expel from another person's lips, she couldn't help but feel as though she had said too much.

"...And the only thing that can supposedly cure you is the ghost of some crazy-ass doctor that appears out of a film-projector...and _this _is your reason for not coming with me?"

Dreading that she was loosing his trust, the sorceress begun to defend her story, "I _swear_, twice I've gotten upset in this place, passed out and when I woke up..."

"I know, I _know_." Alding breathed an exasperated sigh, having heard this for the third time, "When you woke up, you were surrounded by mutilated bodies and have no memory of what happened."

"I know it sounds crazy, but..."

"Lifting a two-ton metal detector from the ground with nothing but your mind is pretty fuckin' crazy in _my _book," He again cut her off mid-sentence, "But you did it anyway."

With his voice lapsing into a more inviting tone, Raven felt permitted to again look him in the eyes, and did so.

"So, do you believe me?"

The corrections officer paused his handiwork to exhale sharply and offer a thoughtful shrug of his shoulders. "Why not? I've seen everything _else _today..." He replied, then pulled the bandage into a holding knot, causing his accomplice to wince.  
" 'At oughta' do it. Think you can stand?"

Raven face-faulted at the thought of using her wounded leg, but knew it was in her best interest, especially if Alding was about to say what she was dreading.

After taking a deep breath and shutting her eyes tight, she pushed herself up. Her entire body tensed as a throbbing pain shot through her calve, but she did not fall. With a rather hard bite of her lip, she ignored the jolts of pain and held the upright position strong.

It took every ounce of this solemn determination to begin working the injured limb in a motion similar to walking. A sensation not unlike pens and needles flourished through her entire leg at first, then gradually died down to a dull pulse.

"I think I'll be alright..." She commented while reaching down to gingerly rub the afflicted calve.

"Good." Harvey replied, subsequently causing Raven's heart to skip. The word wasn't wholesomely uninvited, but provided a large indication of what he was about to say.

"'Cause lemme' tell ya'..." He continued in a sharp, solemn voice, "You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I want no part of you finding this _cure_."

Easily picking up the look of disappointment, mistrust, self-loathing and a wide array of other negative emotions in the telekentic's face, he hectically picked back up, "Now, that's not to say I don't _believe_ what yer' telling me, I got no reason to think you're lying, it's just..." His voice trailed as the memories of his home away from Carnate island begun to flood his mind.

"It's just that I got a little girl back home...far away from all this shit..." Raven's hopeless expression quickly melted away at hearing this.

"Really?" She asked, fixing her eyes on his face. Rather than reply verbally, Harvey reached into his pocket and fished out a small, worn out photograph that depicted the corrections officer next to a tall, particularly attractive brunette woman and between them a girl, looking to be about five or six years.

There was something different about his persona in this picture. Granted, there was still the narrow face and cut, cold-looking eyes, but caught within the confines of this photo, there was something that the present day Harvey Alding completely lacked. There was life.

There was a whole, happy future within his smile. All of that looked to have been completely drained out of him now.

"You had a family...." She mused while studying the picture closer. "The mother...did she?"

Harvey shook his head deniably. "No, it wasn't some sappy-ass tragedy. She just, ah..."

He fell silent in the wake of searching for the right word. When nothing fitting came to mind, he exhaled sharply, shook his head and continued in a drained tone, "Things just didn't work out. She filled for divorce, got full custody of _our _kid...the whole nine yards."

"I'm sorry..." Raven said remorsefully, suddenly wishing she hadn't queried so far. "It was just that the three of you looked so _happy _in this picture..." Her gaze fixed back onto the photograph, more specifically Harvey, whom scoffed, "It _always_ starts out happily." He allowed himself to break from the morbidly realistic moment to smile inwardly, "Y'know the saying about Marriage. 'The first six months you could eat 'em alive, the second six months you wish you had.'"

Raven chuckled subtly at the joke and handed the photo back to him, her eyes fixing on the contents till it was tucked back into the officer's pocket, out of sight.

"So, how did you end up here?" She asked, then quickly added, "If you don't mind telling me..."

"A few things..." Harvey mentally flailed briefly, looking back at the reasons he had chosen to leave his once semi-charmed life far behind. "The only visitation I got was on Sundays, and it was supervised. I never _did _get a good reason for why the ruling was so harsh, considering I have no criminal record and spent some time in the military during the Gulf War." His eyes cut abruptly, "A lot of my friends said that the Judge was a sham."

Raven's eyebrows raised quizzically, "A sham?"

"One guy that got _real_ pissed off about the ruling managed to get his hands on a few legal records. Apparently the judge that made this ruling was involved in a few cases of bribery, but they were all dropped from a _significant lack of evidence_..." he mockingly quoted the final line.

"...But that shouldn't have been enough to keep you away..."

"Of _course _it wasn't. A few weeks after I found all that shit out, she moved off out of state..."

"You never found out where?"

Harvey shrugged, "Never got it clearly. First it was Oregon, then Louisiana, Arizona, then finally, come Virginia, I just gave up. Settled down there, and well..." His free hand motioned over his torso, "Here I am. I wound up finding a position for a _maximum security prison on a coastal isle _that turned out to be some beat up, weathered old piece of shit on a creepy-ass island that has a history of homicidal violence longer than the friggin' Golden Gate..."

It wasn't difficult to catch the word _Virginia _and allow it to become the subject of her next question, "Virginia? You mean we're in Virginia...the state?". Harvey interrupted himself to absorb the obvious query.

"Uh..._yeah_..." He replied, "Maryland, Virginia, Carnate's a small island off the coast...what'd you think?". Raven shook her head negatively. "I'm not sure. Guess I zoned out for a minute." She lied, not sure whether to feel stupid or victimized. It seemed the more she learned about Carnate and it's exact location, the more puzzled and, in more cases than one, frustrated she became.

"Well, _anyway_, I've worked here for close to a year and a half now, so I figured that it would've been a good time to pick back up and start looking for her again, then low and behold, this happens...."

"It makes no sense..." Raven muttered, turning the entire subject of Alding's lost child over and over in her mind, "What your ex-wife is doing is _illegal, _and the child support...there should've been _some _way for you to have kept track of them, you can't look me in the face and tell me that the entire world was against you!" Her voice was beginning to rise and she knew she was starting to aimlessly rant, but couldn't find it in herself to care. The never-ending uncertainty of what was in store for her and all the pieces of the puzzle that simply didn't fit had again begun to take their toll, "It's just like this island, nothing comes together! How I got here, why none of my emotions effect the environment, what these things are and where they're coming from, _none of it makes any sense!_" Her risen voice lapsed to a shrill scream at the end and left not only the office, but the entire depot silent.

Harvey solemnly locked his gaze onto Raven's un-moving form, but did not receive a likewise response. The telekinetic's face had fallen toward the floor as she drew in unsteady breaths, not attempting to recompose herself so much as simply stewing in the outburst's aftermath.

Whatever mental activity busied itself with occupying her mind was abruptly cut short when Alding abruptly spoke, "Well, looks like my rejection's found a way outta' your system..."

He smiled inwardly as Raven's head rose to lock eyes with his own.

"I wanna' stick with you till the end, but I _swore_ I'd find her this time, and I can't risk my life for someone I've only known a few hours over my own kid."

"I..." Her eyes dropped once more as she trailed a mere word into her reply, "I understand..."

"No you don't." Harvey retorted while approaching the office door, "You can't. No one figures it out till they've had children of their own. It's the point when life stops revolving around _you_, and if it starts to again..."

He turned to face her, and in that instant, for the smallest conceivable moment, the cut, cold eyes that were Harvey Alding's softened in the slightest bit, "If it starts to again, you may as well put that kid up for adoption, 'cause you're no parent. You're nothing."

With no further emphasis or explanation necessary, he exited and disappeared from sight. Raven digested the lecture only briefly before following his lead into the supply hangar.

"I came in through the second floor from the guard walls, it was pretty nasty on the ground, so by now I get the feeling the entire place'll be just _crawling _with bad guys, but it's the quickest way outta' here." Harvey explained while leading off toward the series of corridors he had come from, "...and I'm not too worried about 'em. Me and the uzi, here have a pretty good friendship going." He raised the sub machine gun and, in effect, face-faulted at seeing Raven struggle to keep her own hefty shotgun held steady.

"You could use a bit of a lighter gun, what with that hurt leg and all." The corrections officer noted.

"And where would I find one?"

He pondered briefly before producing a simple, yet renovating thought, "Stidewall's still in the hangar, right?"

Caught off-guard by the sudden subject-switch, Raven flailed slightly before answering, "Yeah..."

Harvey did not bother to remain still and outline his query before spinning on his heal and striding back toward the hangar.

"Wait a second! What does Stidewall have to do with any of this?" The sorceress probed while procuring a close pursuit.

"His gun, that's what." Came a hurried reply, "He has an old forty-four that never left his side. It's a light side-arm, but _damn _does it ever pack a punch."

Raven froze momentarily, though not utterly disgusted, finding herself slightly surprised at the officer's disrespect for the dead.

"Hey!" She called after him while following his lead into the center of the hangar. "You can't just take his gun away from him!"

Alding stopped and turned to face her just feet shy of his former employer's corpse.

"Why?" He asked, "It's not like the lunatic has very much to shoot at these days..."

"Because..." She trailed when no _logical _reason came to mind, but quickly redoubled her argument with a stout _I don't need a reason _attitude.

"Because it's wrong! Don't you have _any _respect for the deceased?!?"

Harvey grinned nonchalant before answering, "Nope. Not really. You shouldn't either..." He waved his hand down toward Stidewall's prone form, islanded in a pool of blood, "Not for some raging psychopath that tried to cut you down with an autogun."

"But you knew him _before, _he lost his sanity, didn't you?" Raven retorted.

"It wasn't much of an improvement, Stidewall's _always _been a jackass, straight up."

Raven quieted, her moral dilemma beginning to satiate itself. "It just...doesn't seem right..." She murmured, "It's entirely my fault he's dead, and now I'm taking something he cherished in life?"

Harvey extended his hand outward, the forty four clenched within.

"In a situation like this, right and wrong shouldn't come into play. Not when it comes to keeping yourself alive." After the gun was accepted, he again gestured toward the deceased warden, "And as for Stidewall, his death wasn't exactly a despairing tragedy...It's not like you blew away Doc Severson. This was a slow-minded prison warden that went insane in a _very _bizarre chain of events."

"...Fine." Raven gave in while examining the firearm's barrel, "I'll use it, but I won't like it..."

"Deal with it. We can't afford to waste any more time in here...I'm surprised those _things _haven't already sniffed us out, and butchered us..." After adjusting the cast around his arm, Alding turned and begun the venture toward the exit. Raven paused only to glance back at Stidewall's body. Something to say stirred within the sorceress' mind, but died upon her lips, and with that absence of mind so wholesomely present, she left the scene in it's own ominous silence.

-The prison's outermost layer of guard walls-

Raven was more or less content with the particularly short window of time required to reach the prison's exit onto the guard walls, but it was miniscule compared to her anxiety of reaching the

Penitentiary's limits and being once more left on her own.

The walls themselves distantly stretched outward and massed together in what would, from an overhead view, resemble a massive maze. On either side of each wall, roughly ten feet apart, were industrial searchlights, not unlike those found on the guard tower. As Raven studied them, it struck her that several were positioned in a manner as to cast their light onto the wall itself.

Just as she attempted to piece things together, a glass-shattering screech ripped through the once serene night air, shortly followed by a complementary curse from Harvey.

"I knew we couldn't get by without them catching on!" He barked while readying the sub machine gun.

Just as the first machete beast met with the surface of the wall, it was plowed down by a hail of gunfire.

After repeating the process with two more and disabling another by blasting it's legs out from underneath it, the corrections officer fell back, more or less pushed by the consistent reinforcements arriving by the second.

"God Damn!" He groaned, "It's like for every one I kill, two more take it's place!"

Raven sparred momentarily to hold the brigade off with gunfire of her own before replying, "Their coming from a dimensional rift!"

"A dimensional _what_?"

A bullet issued from Raven's forty-four ripped through the abdomen of the last machete beast to have arrived on top of the wall, putting an end to the first wave. With no time to muse over her handiwork, she clarified, "A dimensional rift! It's right down there!" Then pointed toward the ground, structured as a baseball field, the infield of which was completely dominated by what one could have only assumed to be a bottomless pit.

"What the Hell..." Harvey flailed while watching a new horde of beasts descend from the hole.

"Is there any end to them?"

Raven shook her head sharply, "I doubt it."

"Then how do we stop them? We definitely can't get by if they keep comin' on like _this_!"

He pointed toward the parade of monsters, whom had reached the foot of the wall.

"I'm not completely s..." She cut her reply off mid-sentence as the solution presented itself.

"The spotlights!"

"What?"

"I'm not positive, but I don't think they like the light. Maybe if we shined the spotlights on them..."

"Whatever you're going to do..." Harvey interrupted her explanation, "Don't waste time explaining it to me. They're gaining on us!"

Raven followed his gaze to see that the first few beasts had breached the wall. Adhering to his advice, she cleared the distance to the nearest searchlight and swung it around to face the intruding beast, blindly fumbling for the power switch all the while.

Abruptly during the decapitated creature's stalking approach, an almost inaudible _click _arose from the sorceress' direction, quickly followed by an obscenely bright diameter of light hitting home directly onto it's chest.

In instant response, it released a piercing scream and shrank back, then shortly there after, burst into flames.

"I knew it!" Raven exclaimed excitedly. "We need to shine the light onto the rift, that will get them to stop!"

Harvey, only listening enough to get the general point, hung his arm over the edge of the wall and begun firing into the now medium sized army of beasts that had accumulated on the baseball field.

"I'll hold them off, just get on with it!" He ordered.

As to prepare herself for the worst, Raven checked the forty four's ammunition before starting toward the next spotlight. When she indeed reached her destination, she was presented with another problem; whether to shine the light onto the rift or the beasts. Harvey was an excellent shot, but his ammo wouldn't last forever, and with a broken arm, reloading was near to impossible. On the other hand, the rift had produced well-sized plethora of enemies in less than a minute, and putting in end to it now would most definitely lay the bigger problem to rest.

Little did the debating titan know that a beast whom had strayed away from the large group of it's peers and Harvey had failed to notice was about to present her with an option of another kind.

"EEK!" Raven yelped in surprise as the pallid freak-show came bounding over the edge of the wall, completely clearing the full gauge of her height and landing gracefully behind her.

"Damn it!" The telekinetic cursed as she whirled around to neutralize the new-found threat. It, however, had other plans in mind.

Just as the forty-four was raised in defense, it's owner was hit in the shoulder by a looping roundhouse, that though only succeeding to leave a scratch, sent her stumbling in reverse and eventually over the wall.

For the second occasion of the night, her shoulders and back connected violently with the ground in the wake of a lengthy plummet. This time, however, it was too much for her enfeebled endurance to bear. She picked her torso up, but could not maintain.

The last thing she would see before blacking out was a steady stream of bullets burrowing into throat of her attacker, nearly thirty feet above her.

-End chapter 9-


	10. Them bones

"Frailty"

Chapter 10- "Them bones"

Disclaimer-

The song "Them Bones" was written by Lane Staley and produced by the band Alice in Chains. I had nothing to do with it's creation.

It was a song that Raven couldn't pinpoint, but found familiar as she slowly begun to emerge from slumber. Despite only being half-conscious, she could tell that it was not coming from within her head. A very slight degree of static that accompanied the background rhythm, courtesy of an electric guitar, maintained that notion. Her eyes begun to crack open when the lyrics begun,

"_I believe them bones are me._

_Some say we're born into the grave._

…_I feel so alone. Gonna' end up a _

_Big ole pile o' them bones."_

It wasn't until the conclusion of the first verse came to be did the realization that she was in a particularly cramped space settle in. After turning her head slightly, the sound of water colliding forcefully with glass came into earshot.

"_Dust rise right on over my time._

_Empty fossil of the new scene._

…_I feel so alone. Gonna' wind up a_

_Big ole pile o' them bones."_

She was in a vehicle. No two ways about it. A radio playing, rainwater hitting the wind-shield, it all came together, and in her better judgement, it was the cab of a truck, assumed directly from the discomfort and the awkward way of which she was laid out, but the sorceress was still too drowsy to positively determine.

"_Toll due. Bad dream come true. _

_I lie dead, gone underneath a red sky. _

…_I feel so alone. Gonna' end up a _

Big ole pile o' them bones…" 

As the actual lyrics came to an end and the song moved into repetition to be prolonged, a full gauge of her surroundings, along with memory of what last happened to her, settled. She had fallen off the prison walls and, judging from the dull soreness in her back, hit the astro-turf below with a cruel impact. At some point or another, she was rescued from the beasts' grasp, and whisked away to a relatively safe location. The weather outside was nasty, so she must have been placed inside the truck's dry confines, the radio left on in an obvious attempt to startle her from unconsciousness. There was only one piece of the puzzle that was missing.

Harvey, the very one whom had _accomplished _all of this. With the corrections officer in mind, she grasped onto a side of the passenger's seat and pulled herself into a sitting position, getting slightly light-headed with the more leverage she gained.

After rubbing her eyes, she gazed through the rear windshield, peering hard past the driving rain to get some bearings on her location.

It was darkness, for the most part. There was the slight outline of a fence, roughly a hundred yards directly behind the truck.

"Wait…" She whispered, "If the radio's on…" Quickly, Raven whirled around and scooted into the driver's side. Just as she had predicted, a key was in the ignition. She extended a hand, but was caught short by an afterthought.

This seemed too easy.

If Harvey had been here earlier, what kept _him_ from capitalizing on the truck?

In the midst of a snap decision, she yanked down on the handle of the driver's side door and pushed it completely open, letting the brisk sheets of rainwater sweep over her. After dropping onto the damp earth, she knelt down beneath the still ajar door and looked ahead, seeing exactly what she feared. No tires. Taking their place were four cement blocks. She gave an exasperated sigh while recovering to her feet.

"Beautiful…"

The score seemed dire, but something kept Raven's hopes from completely draining as she looked ahead of the truck. The final prison wall was behind her. This meant she was out of the penitentiary. For good. The only thing that stood between her and the remainder of Carnate's horrors was an old, rusted fence. Before starting down a mud path that led toward the fencing, Raven threw one last glance into the cab of the truck and brandished a smile upon her face at what she saw. Harvey may have left her alone, but he sure as Hell hadn't left her defenseless. Laying directly across the cab's flooring was a rifle, with the forty-four on top of it.

She was still smiling as she reached in and extracted the sidearm, slipped it behind her waist-charm, then returned her hands to the cab to wrap them about the rifle.

As Raven went about figuring how to properly handle the gun, she caught sight of a note-card, strung to a metallic ring that was recessed on it's butt. Squinting to make out the words, she read aloud,

"Model: US M-16A1 automatic assault rifle.

Twenty round clip.

When operating fully automatic this rifle is capable of firing up to 700 rounds a minute.

Round length-5.56 mm, the shock of a round passing through even a target's minor extremities can be lethal.

Firing range- 400 meters

Muzzle velocity- 900 meters a second.

WARNING: This rifle has an extreme recoil and is not to be fired unless the butt is placed directly against the user's arm! Failure to adhere to this can result in extreme injury or death!"

Raven examined the rifle with a contortion of intrigue and caution after receiving an eye-full of the information card. Linked from it's muzzle to the butt was a leather strap, which hung loosely from the gun several inches. Thinking conservatively, she strapped the M-16 to her back and re-armed the forty-four. After taking an ammunition check on both guns (Which, like usual, was a strict hit-or-miss process.) she started for the fencing.

The conclusion of the prison wasn't the only thing Raven had awoken in close proximity to.

After crossing the fence (A large, crude gap made it as easy as slightly kneeling) she was greeted by a dirt path, beside which the ground gave way to a nearly forty foot drop. Indeed, she was standing on a large cliff, elevated above the shore. The prison had obviously been positioned here to prevent escapes. Standing a few feet shy of the edge, she leaned slightly over and looked down.

It was far from a tranquil beach-going scene. Where there _should _have been white sand was a series of jagged rocks that were occasionally washed over by a dark wave of ocean water. Like the rest of Carnate, it was depressing and hopeless.

Sighing heavily, Raven straightened herself up and looked down the path that twisted and wound alongside the island's edge. Raising a hand above her brow did little to help identify just where it would ultimately lead to, or if there were any secondary trails that branched away from it.

All she had was instinct and hope as she begun the exploratory venture.

Roughly ten minutes of following the same, uniform path that ran alongside the island's edge would come to pass before she would encounter a break (The rain also died down considerably in the duration of this time-frame, to nearly a light sprinkle) . Though the trail continued it's navigation around the cliff, Raven's specific location presented a single break that led into the midst of the island. More specifically, a dense thicket of dying trees. The thin cascading downpour and a midst that seemed to populate only distant areas conspired to prevent her from making out any other details. Ultimately, the telekinetic was left wondering just _what _she was getting herself into as she started down the path.

As she closed the distance between the thicket and herself, Raven noticed that backside of several trees, not to mention bushes and other articles of underbrush that lay on the surface outside of the path were dully illuminated by a lantern that was strung to a branch no more than four of five feet from the ground. Retrieving the source of light and holding out in front of her enabled Raven to see that the path she was exploring ended quite abruptly. In fact, the land that lay before her ended right along with it. With a cord of bewilderment struck, she continued down the trail till she met with the conclusion, and brought her eyes downward. It went on, alright, but rather than continue to head straight, the trail slopped into the surface of a deep, man-made pit, resembling that of a quarry, but taking the place of water, there was a series of dirt-hauling trucks, stationary lights set up on tri-pods, and a wide array of heavy digging equipment. In addition to all of this, dominating the center of the wall opposite the pit's entrance, there was a wide, cavernous hole, obviously a mine of some sort.

From her elevated point of a view, the scene looked to be undisturbed. There were no signs of conflict, or for that matter, even a hasty attempt of escaping, thus Raven's mind was not burdened with worry as she continued down the path. It was not until she reached the excavation pit's surface and ventured out a few feet did she catch sight of something that gave her reason to fret.

The odd, deep craters that dotted the ground had not gone un-noticed from the top of the slope, however with a lack of illumination, it was difficult to tell just _how _far into the earth they ventured.

As the titan stood over the first deep, widely circumfranced hole, she noted in that ominous instant, that it seemed to go on_ forever. _Just as she began to ponder over whether or not to drop the lantern down the tunnel, simply to see if, in fact, it ran perpetually, a low, violent rumbling shuddered over the earth, unsettling much of the digging equipment. Struggling to keep on her feet, Raven scanned the immediate vicinity for the miniature earth-quake's cause, seeing nothing till her eyes came to rest on the entrance to the mines. She would later claim that what she saw in that instance was nearly identical to the trademark under-ground movement of the "Graboids" from an old early nineties move called "Tremors". In light, the analogy would be quite accurate.

What approached from the foot of the mines was indeed, barely underneath the surface, burrowing in such a way that it flung a trail of topsoil onto the earth, which told a third-party _exactly _where it was headed.

In Raven's case, it was moving directly toward her at an almost blinding speed.

Heeding this ample warning, Raven side-strafed out of the line of fire inches before it reached her, and not a moment too soon. A split second following the titan's dodge, her burrowing assailant revealed itself by bursting out from the ground like an erupting geyser, flinging large clumps of earth and rock in every direction. Conflicting with the brief bestiary she had encountered, this creature had a very scare amount of details. To paraphrase, it looked like an inordinarily tall humanoid, mummified in straight-jackets and a series of looping brass chains that hung from it's form and dangled about in full feet. Threateningly, they swung about when it made a sudden or violent movement. This, it did plenty of, as it's new-found prey would soon discover.

After a brief episode of sporadically thrashing around, it begun to slowly revolve, picking up speed with each second till each chain that strayed from it's frame was swung completely out. The lethality of these chains would be all too discovered when Raven misjudged the distance set between the creature and her to be safe, and was just as promptly nailed across the face, which sent her tumbling over in reverse. Wincing with a dull throb that pulsated where the chain-link had come to land, Raven drug herself away from the psychotic rinse-cycle before her and shrugged the M-16 from her back. Sure to keep the rifle's butt stable against the ground, she placed aim on the creature's lower extremities -- the only part of it that seemed to remain still longer than a second, and yanked down on the trigger, accidentally raising the muzzle thereafter.

An abrupt explosion of gunfire erupted from the barrel and, rather than simply sink into the intended target, blasted ninety percent of it's torso region into a flurry of thick, bright green bodily fluid, chunks of torn muscle and smoked straight-jacket material. What little remained intact slumped back into the hole. Raven remained on the dirt ground for full minutes, letting the throb in her face die down, before recovering to her feet and returning the M-16 to it's space on her back. She would spare another minute to retrieve the lantern before starting for the mines.

The twisting mass of tunnels that made up the cavernous mining area were narrow, interconnected at almost every turn, which made them appear more and more as though it was all some big, nightmarish maze, and seemed to have a thick, ominous darkness that Raven's lantern did little to banish. A low, ambient creak was all it took for her to completely lose her nerve and subsequently search every immediate square inch for the noise's cause. In gradual success, nearly each corridor of the mines would be searched, proven to be a dead-end, discovered, found to be a meaningless link to _another _cavern, and so on. Nearly a half hour after entering the mines came to pass before she would receive a break. Whilst approaching a break to the right, she noted that much of the coming tunnel was bathed in a pale, bright luminescence.

It was that sight that caused her to hastily clear the remaining distance, and lose grip on the once cautious mindset. As she rounded the corner and fled into the next tunnel, her feet met with the cold, clammy sensation of a deep puddle. Surely enough, when the titan dropped her head, she was greeted by the sight of her feet, completely submerged in water. Disgusting water, from the looks of it. The source of illumination, which reflected on the consistently rippling surface, revealed itself to be a twin halogen work-light, positioned on a tripod, not unlike those found outside. Drawing closer, she noticed that it gave off a most uncomfortable radiance of heat, but that observation was dropped quickly when her eyes took in the area she was about to enter.

Nearly doubling in size of the largest tunnel she had been down, it was plain to see that this was not intended as a corridor. A second level that inter-connected with the first through an aged ladder furthered that assumption. Piles of boxes labeled "TNT" and a plethora of discarded halogen lights also indicated that it was being used as some sort of storage. Careful not to disturb the contents, she begun to search through, behind and around the boxes for something that may come in assistance. Outside of a clip-on halogen flashlight, which quickly replaced the lantern, she was coming up empty-handed.

A shrill shriek that echoed from the explored tunnels cut Raven's activities short and made her blood run cold. Throughout the night, she had heard a collection of heart-stopping wails, screams and groans, but this took the prize. Wheeling around, she raised the magnum, ready to pull the trigger on the first living thing to breach the foot of the tunnel, however this intent would quickly dissolve upon seeing just _what _it was that she was up against.

To say that a fair-sized brigade of monstrosities had entered into Raven's specific area would be a daft understatement. Nothing short of an _army_ of machete' beasts and syringe chimps came flooding from the cavern's dark reaches. Most of the beasts would begin to scale the walls toward her, where as the chimps covered the ground. Raven took this terrifying sight in with understandable shock, and just as promptly tore off for the ladder.

'_Damn, Raven!_'She thought to herself while sprinting the roughly hundred yard distance, '_You really stepped in it, this time!_' Rather than continue to run the last few feet between the ladder and herself, the sorceress knelt down and sprung forward, catching directly in the center. She wasted no time collecting her bearings before hastily scaling for the second level. Never before had the Azarathian girl wanted to levitate than in that instance. This urge would only grow worse when one of the beasts, apparently physically superior to it's peers, caught up with her.

She would pause her climb only briefly to discharge a single round into it's ribs, then continue on her way.

The second level was a crude, circular area, lit by a sole work-light. Much like it's predacessor, it was stock-piled with crates and boxes, so much so that the tunnel that would lead either deeper, or out of the mines was almost covered. Raven was about to start for the gaping hole, when something caught the corner of her eye. Strewn across the top of a box was a sloppy arangement of dynamite. Not completely sure of how they would come in handy, but hoping for the best, her hand shot forward and wrapped around the center of a single stick. She immediately thereafter fled the scene.

It was either the corridor's unparalleled length, or the fact that it's conclusion broke off to both the left and right that made Raven feel as though, if there were greater forces at work, they were toying with her that night…and probably laughing their asses off.

She was nearly ten feet in before the sounds of her pursuers began to echo from behind her. Peering over her shoulder, she was slightly relieved to see that the count couldn't have been more than ten. The thought of using the M-16 once more did not seem appealing, but was more logical than aimlessly running through the tunnels with her hunters in such close proximity. Raven hastily pulled the strap from her shoulders and armed the rifle. With only a faint hope that the butt was in it's proper place, she yanked down on the trigger. Subsequently, the menacing screams and growls of her monstrous assailants weren't the only thing echoing throughout the mines.

With an almost animalistic ferocity, the rounds that were ejected from the M-16 met with their victims. In effect, ninety percent of the small hunting party was not brought down so much as it was ripped to pieces, narrowing the score to two machete beasts and one chimp.

Both decapitated monsters rushed directly for their prey, whilst their much smaller ally begun to pluck syringes from it's back. The first opponent to have reached the backpedaling Raven begun a series of exploratory swipes and jabs, all of which her reverse movement greatly assisted to avoid. Spying the second beast drawing ever closer, the sorceress forced the forty-four out from behind her charm. With her assailant not letting up even a foot, specific aim was hardly necessary, thus the trigger was pulled as soon as it became a possibility. A practical explosion exited from the barrel and met with the offending creature's shoulder, blowing it's entire arm along with nearly a third of the torso away. Losing almost gallons of blood by the second, it shrunk back and hit the ground.

Raven's intention of persisting the counter attack died as quickly as she caught sight of the arrival of more than twenty 'reinforcements'. After sparring a moment to blast one more round into the second beast, she sighed heavily and dashed deeper still into the narrow cavern. Where her instincts told her to turn right, a consistent fretting that flourished in the back of her mind urged to at least _look_ to the left. However, there was no time for looking, let alone drawn out indecision. Keeping that in mind, she turned right upon reaching the fork.

The first occasion of using her instincts was satisfyingly correct. The end of this particular tunnel was populated by one more crudely formed hole, through which dark, heavy clouds could be seen. With her adrenaline climbing, Raven's speed increased till she was only two or three feet short of the exit, to which she completely stopped. Reaching down, she extracted the stick of dynamite, which, like the magnum, was being held behind her charm.

Bringing the fuse to meet with the halogen light, she fixed her gaze back toward the army of beasts, which were steadily closing the distance between them and her.

"Go…" She muttered when it caught flame, "_TO HELL_!!!"

Arching her arm back as far as it could go, Raven flung the dynamite forward, then jumped through the hole.

-End chapter ten-


	11. Black and Blue

"Frailty"

Chapter eleven- "Black and Blue"

Disclaimer/Author's note

An enemy from the game, "Serious Sam-The Final Encounter" is going to have a mild cameo in this chapter. It has nothing to due with TT, however, upon looking at it, you would _swear_ that it came from Azarath (For all that one hears of it)

That being said, the Kleer is the sole property of Global Star software and I am making no claims to, much less am I profiting off of, it.

And please, don't fret, I found a way to _logically _include it.

-Fic start-

…But Harvey Alding couldn't do this. His morality as a soldier tugged at his mind without cessation. Despite leaving Raven with a small arsenal and cleared of the prison's confines, the fact that he had left her _at all _was easily outweighing everything he had done to justify his actions.

"Ends justify the means my ass…" He mumbled while frowning down at the Uzi in his holster; the only weapon remaining.

Having gone through a dysfunctional marriage, rocky divorce, and completely giving up on his child, Alding was no rookie to the ominous sensation of guilt, much less regret. It was this familiarity that kept him steady venturing toward the light-house; more namely, a small communications office next to it. His only real plan was to keep things in check.

His emotions had screwed him quite royally in the past, and odds were, they'd do it again if he let them.

The Corrections Officer sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes, finding them to be rather weary. With slightly blurred vision, he gazed up from the palm of his hand to see the light-house's shadowed, towering form, and just as promptly noticed something _different _about the piercing spotlight positioned at the very top.

"…The Hell?" He muttered while peering toward the steadily flickering luminescence. Harvey clued in that something was wrong when the light suddenly died. A contortion of despair and intrigue controlling his legs, he sprinted the remaining distance to the office.

The front door of the small, one-room building was completely ajar, and even from a twenty yard distance, a voice, consumed by garbled static could be easily be heard. Ironically, as Harvey cleared the threshold, he caught the transmission directly at it's beginning, "Coast guard Prometheus to Carnate Island, Carnate Island, do you read?"

Hastily seizing the megaphone, Alding jerked it to his mouth and replied in a breathless voice, "Coast guard Prometheus, this is Corrections Officer Harvey Alding, I read you loud and clear. What's your status?"

There was a brief pause, occupied by static, before the coast-guard replied, "We're about a hundred to two hundred yards off-shore, but the spot-light just died. In order for us to land, the spot-light has to be operational and fully rotating."

"No shit…" Harvey grumbled to himself before sending the actual transmission, "I'm aware of the light-house's condition, Prometheus, but I'm not sure what caused it, can you advise?"

The coast guard on the other end could almost be heard gathering his thoughts before answering, "Judging from the series of flickers, it was probably from generator-failure. You might want to look into that."

"I'll do just that, Prometheus, and radio you when I'm finished." Harvey dropped the megaphone and started for the door, ignoring the return from Prometheus, "Alright, Coast Guard Prometheus is on stand-by till further notice."

"Generator-failure at the last damn second…" The officer murmured to himself while extracting the Uzi from it's holster. "Gee, luck be a lady tonight…" He added sarcastically, chuckling thereafter.

A path that forked in three different directions stemmed from the light house's entrance, two of which stretched into the communications building, and the center of Carnate. The third trail, therefore, was rationally assumed to lead toward the generator. Such a guess was supported by a thick black pipe, wound in numerous cables, that begun at the base of the tower and followed alongside the said path, which cleared a short-lived field before vanishing into the dark midst of a thicket.

Thin clouds of dust unsettled from the old trail as the soles of Harvey's boots traipsed across it's surface. Tall grass that forested the neighboring field whipped at his calves before getting crushed underfoot. Rising high above the nearly waist-length weeds in numerous numbers were a collection of crude stakes that dotted the field. Shining his flashlight over each of them, one in particular caught Harvey's attention. Positioned in a circled area of dirt , the stake stood at a rough nine foot height and possessed a mound of large rocks at the base.

The corrections officer arched an eyebrow in mild interest.

"…What the Hell would we need all of _these_ for?"

He begun to lapse into the field to acquire a closer look, but was stopped short by a young, feminine voice. Though easily in close proximity, the exact whereabouts were unknown.

"Silly grown-ups…"

Harvey spun on his heel and swung the flashlight around him, coming up empty till it's luminescence hit the entrance of the thicket.

Standing at the foot of the yawning gap were two small girls, mirror images of each other in every conceivable way. A faded pink dress, looking to have descended directly from the early nineteenth century, concealed most of their pallid skin, leaving it open only at the face.

A crown of silky black hair that's bangs veiled the eyes cascaded down to the mid-back and, despite there being occasional gusts of wind, never once unsettled. Grasped in each girl's hand was a doll, entirely comprised of straw.

"Always asking questions that have scary answers." One of them picked back up.

"If you really want to know…" Her twin continued for her, "You should follow us, but you won't like what you find…"

In unison, both girls turned and started down the wood-trail, however only one's grip around her doll loosened.

Upon the small toy's collision with the ground, it erupted into a colossal explosion, leaving a large fire as a momento. Harvey stumbled in reverse and hit the ground with a dull _wunt_.

Struggling to lift himself with his only arm, he gazed into the swirling torrent.

"What…the…" His lungs failed him briefly, "What the _Hell_?"

-Raven-

A frail breeze swept over the smoldering remains of the mines, blowing several strands of amethyst hair into Raven's face. For a solemn instant, the only sound present was that of trees, their branches tussled by the mild gusts of wind. Brushing the stray hairs from her eyes, the telekinetic gazed into the near mountain-sized accumulation of busted timer and dirt that lay a mere hundred yard distance away from her.

The full gauge of the single dynamite's power had displayed itself sheer minutes after erupting. The entire island was seemingly jostled in it's wake, easily slinging Raven to the dirt-ridden ground. Subsequently, the aged support beams that had held the tunnel together gave a sigh before collapsing, causing it, and roughly a quarter of the entire network, to come avalanching to the earth. Raven did not stand immediately thereafter. Accounting all of the injuries she had gained, a small tumble to the ground was much like getting struck by a compact car.

A sharp pain that had surfaced from all of her running through the mines jabbed at her sliced calve, and a bruise between the shoulder blades, gained by the numerous falls, pulsated dully and, in some mysterious manner, begun to birth a headache.

Gritting her teeth, the sorceress cradled her head in both hands and attempted to meditate, hoping that such an exercise would regain some of her powers which, for the longest time, had been completely dormant.

The desired effect was anything _but_ received. Instead, something, the likes of which depth perception revealed to be a small, round object, forcefully struck her in the back of the head.

"OW!" Raven groaned . Whilst gingerly rubbing the effected area, she climbed to her feet as quickly as her generally sore body would allow, and whirled into the direction of the offensive projectile. The path she stood on, surrounded by thickets on both sides, stretched before her a rough twenty foot distance before breaking to both the left and right. Positioned at the corner of the path and it's lead to the right was, what she could have only assumed to be, a payphone. Set on a crudely fashioned pole, the base was cracked at the front and side, and the line that connected it to the actual _phone _was snapped, rendering it useless.

…And this was the _only _thing out of the ordinary. Nothing that was capable of even _breathing_, much less throwing, lay within her immediate sight.

Only becoming more baffled, Raven's head dropped to the ground, revealing that her culprit was a small stone. Before readjusting her gaze, something caught her eye.

Kneeling down, she retrieved the rock and, turning it over, found a small slip of paper strung to it. With little to no space, it bore a single line in neat, cursive writing, "Answer the phone."

Ironically, just as the note was read and registered (Though, far from comprehended), the ring of it's subject begun to bray across the still air.

A chill crawled up the sorceress' spine as she dropped the stone and looked in the direction of the payphone.

Her sixth sense that, until then had been inactive, easily picked up a baleful force that resided within the phone. It would fail in permanently keeping her dormant when the realization that the longer she waited, the louder the ringing would grow, sunk in.

After arriving, she stood before it for some time, listening to the phone's whine become perceptively louder, and feeling the immense evil that surrounded it settle on her flesh. The dark recesses of Raven's mind screamed at her to refrain when her hand reached for the phone, operating under the assumption that whatever was on the other end of the line could only do her harm. Her two front teeth clamped onto the soft flesh of her lower lip as her fingers wrapped about the narrow neck. Closing both eyes tight, she jerked the phone from it's hooks and raised it to her ear, not bothering to say hello.

She was greeted by a painfully familiar voice, "_Well, it's about time you answered! I begun to think you didn't like me…_"

The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

"Dr. Killjoy…" She muttered weakly.

"_Indeed, dear, indeed. I've been worrying that you may not know how to reach my asylum. Turn right and before long it will come into view, be cautious, though, Carnate's darkness hardly wants you to come into contact with me. I would talk to you more, but I have a patient whom necessitates some of my more, eh…'Delicate' attentions._" A ghostly wail emerged from the background, causing Raven to start in surprise.

"_You know what they say, a patient that is well tended to is twice as likely to return. Do travel safely now, dear, I can't have my largest medical find going off and getting herself hurt._" With that, the phone on the other end hung up, leaving Raven puzzled, frightened, but even more so determined.

Just as doctor Killjoy had said, halfway through the path, his asylum came into view. A tall, two story building of Victorian design, it easily towered above the thicket, exposing it's weathered, peeling white paint-job, and two marble statues positioned at both corners of a black-shingled roof.

Raven abruptly paused her venture at noticing that one of the structures depicted that of a Kleer, a skeletal, hound-like beast that was a magical construct on Azarath. She squinted, making sure that the darkness wasn't simply making it appear as such.

Regardless, she continued to walk and, upon drawing closer, concluded that it was _definitely _a Kleer. Two sets of horns that sprouted from the head and jaw, achieving a unique angle, perspired the most damning evidence.

"But.." The logical half of her mind protested, "How could he _possibly_ know about…?"

A sudden explosion, not within the immediate area, but still seeming to be in close proximity, cut Raven's train of thought short and caused her to gasp in shock.

Two more followed in quick succession. She turned from one side to the other, but saw nothing.

The noises, however, persisted.

A tumultuous symphony of feet stomping into the ground, some sort of audible slithering, Earth being kicked into the air—_something was coming for her!_

…And all at once, an earsplitting gun blast screamed from behind the thicket. Raven turned her head in it's direction to see a nearby tree come crashing to the ground. Receiving the warning, she backpedaled away, and not a moment too soon. Another gunshot, and an assortment of trees that lined the trail toppled over. Bounding over them was a vaguely familiar brute. The wide array of artillery sprouting from it's back was a sickeningly nogalistic reminder of a similar encounter in the prison.

Upon catching site of it's prey, the monstrosity hunched over, bringing it's upper-most guns to bear upon her. Raven backed away and self-consciously gazed at her forty-four before raising it to the face of her newest nemesis. Her finger tensed as it brushed along the trigger, but something cut her intentions short.

A strange sensation in the vaults of her mind was telling her that this was _not _a one-on-one. The creature's failure to fire in nearly a half-minute maintained the vibe.

Wide-eyed, Raven kept the magnum level, however just as she seemed ready to open fire, the sorceress spun around and popped a near point-blank round into the face of _another_ gun-creature that had been standing behind her for an undetermined amount of time.

It's head exploded into a flurry of blood, bone fragments and brains, leaving nothing more than a stump that was once the neck behind as a keepsake.

"I _knew _it!" Raven hissed as she sprung to the side, evading a blast from the only remaining beast. As one fell, the other assumed the offensive. Assuming what football fans would describe as a 'linebacker' stance, the beast dashed directly in for her. Caught off guard and slow to react, Raven's abdomen was met by the strong forearm of her assailant, causing her to flip forward before crashing into the ground. She attempted to sit up immediately thereafter, but simply could not hold. Winded beyond measurable terms, entirely soar and suffering from a splitting headache that almost felt concussive, she would remain in a sitting position for less than a full minute before flopping onto her back. Exhausted and hurt as she may have been, Raven's grip about the magnum never loosened through the entire altercation.

Despite it's victory, the beast did not relent or damper it's ferocity. Immediately after registering the damage, it stalked toward it's prey, knelt over and seized her by the throat. Sadistically tightening it's grip, it hefted her into the air. The broad fingers begun to dig into the teleketic's flesh, cutting off her air supply and increscently donating to her headache. Her already blurred vision growing fuzzy was the perfect sign to do something.

In that instant, the dark titan's body did not voluntarily act, so much as it operated off gut instinct. Just as if she were inhaling, her weapon-bearing arm jerked upward and, due to this, yanked her finger down on the trigger. A tumultuous blast erupted from the barrel, straight down into the beast's foot and, rather than simply sink in, cleanly blew more than half of it away. Rather than throw a fit, as most machete' beasts would have acted, the brute grunted loudly and aborted it's grip.

Raven was dropped to the ground, however her landing was far from smooth. Still too hurt to be dexteritaly capable, she hit the ground on her feet and ungainly tumbled backwards.

The hulking monster sparred less than a minute to grovel over it's lost limb before making due with the stump that remained and approaching it's victim to finish what it had started.

By the time it's destination was reached, Raven had miraculously recovered to her feet.

Rather than utilize one of it's many pieces of artillery, the beast reared it's arm back and lunged forward, swinging a right hook for the face of it's opponent.

Responsively, Raven ungracefully backpedaled, arriving in a safe-haven by mere centimeters.

The assailent was hardly slowed. In quick succession, it swung similar strikes with both arms, but again was avoided without casualty. In that time, it's enemy was laying plans of a counter attack. After dodging the fourth strike, she attempted to act, but was surprised when the beast's only foot landed on her own, pinning her to the spot.  
With fleeting determination, she jerked her tethered extremity away and stumbled in reverse. Just as promptly, she was forcefully met by a clothesline at eye-level, which volleyed her into the earth.

For the second occasion of that battle, she had been served into the ground. This time, however, she could not get up. Her back had smashed into the assault rifle strapped to it, and was now rendered one of the many parts injured, bloody and bruised. Her legs managed to push her a short distance away shortly following the landing, but gave out as a result.

Small rivulets of blood drizzled down the sides of her head and even went so far as to emerge from the recesses of her mouth, flowing down the chin before ultimately coming to rest at her neck. Despite the indescribable amount of pain her body had suffered, Raven's mind was finally beginning to find the peace that it had desired for the past several hours.

As the telekinetic lay there, enveloped in the paroxysm of death, she found herself caring less and less about staying _alive_.

Though far from _ascending_, the worries that burdened and tugged at her mind were beginning to lift, and she was at long last unshackled.

And that opened one last window. One more chance to make things right.

The beast's instincts told it everything it needed to know. It's prey had given up. Life had lost it's luster. No matter how primitive it's mind may have been, anything that possessed the miracle of life could know.

It stood over her, raising both hands over it's head in a 'jackhammer' position.

Just before it brought them down, Raven stuttered in a weak, hoarse voice, "A…Azar..ath…Metr…rion…Zin…thos…" And her broken, black and blue body lifted from the ground, carrying her high into the sky. Before her relentless predator could prepare it's weapons, she was too far out any reach. She was destined for the kingdom Heaven.

Yet, she, God, and anyone else that may have present would have known that Raven was still among the living.

-End Chapter eleven-

Rambling

Should I get any reviews, please, please, PLEASE, refrain from asking why the rifle never went off if she landed on her back so many times…I couldn't take having to answer…


	12. I can sleep when I'm dead

"Frailty"

Chapter twelve- "I can sleep when I'm dead"

"….Ms. Raven? Wake up, sunshine. How am I supposed to perform a _decent_ mental analysis when my subject is fast asleep?"

The 'subject' as the familiar voice of Doctor Killjoy referred to, cringed and issued a soft "Mmm…" of recognition before quieting. Her head pounded furiously, as did the rest of her body, and it seemed impossible to open her eyes. All of this conspired to render her careless of the apparition's request to rise from the cot she had been strewn across, much less how she had arrived there.

The projected wraith hardly seemed amused, however his cheerful disposition did not banish.

"Very well." He stated solemnly. "Perhaps a little music is what you require to gain a fresh start…".

Raven remained silent.

Just as she was about to drift back to sleep, a symphony of piano and violin music begun to bray into her compact accommodations, causing her eyes to flip open in irritation. In under a minute, it would move from just that, to a near blood-boiling lividity that, in her condition, she did not to care to identify the source of.

"Do you know who this is?" Doctor Killjoy queried.

"I don't care!" Raven groaned, her voice beginning to crack. "I just wanna' go to sleep!"

Ignoring the telekinetic, he persisted to lecture, "His name is Jean Sibelius. He was a classical musician from Finland, especially famous in _my_ time. His career as an orchestral composer and conductor _really _took of when he decided to focus all of his studies on counterpoint. Because of that, in 1892, he conducted 'The Kullervo'; what you're hearing now. This was an extensive five- movement composition, which consisted of…"

Raven abruptly bolted upright and snapped her head in the direction of Doctor Killjoy, whom allowed himself to fall silent.

"FUCK JEAN SIBELIUS!" She screamed in a venomous voice that could strip paint.

"JEAN SIBELIUS IS GAY AND HIS MUSIC IS SHIT! I HATE HIM AND I HATE THIS ISLAND, IT SUCKS DICK!!!" She paused her outburst to flop against the cot and turn over, casting her back to the ghost before adding, "…and so does Jean Sibelius."

"…Interesting." Doctor Killjoy remarked as he looked upon the still form of his proclaimed patient. "A mild amount of applied annoyance causes a significant, inhuman boost in the subject's adrenaline levels, which throws the _entire _left side of the Cerebrum out of whack, including the frontal lobe, explaining why she loses consciousness with each occasion that this occurs…"

Raven did not respond when the projection closed the distance between himself and her. Shortly following her violent reaction, she had grown considerably light-headed, and her vision begun to fade.

Looming over her, he continued, "But just _when _did this begin? And what causes it to occur in situations of life and death?"

His last words would remain in the sorceress' mind as she slumbered, "I believe a tour through my asylum may answer these…complicated questions…"

-Harvey-

Gunfire rung across the brisk night air of Carnate island, causing Harvey to cringe whilst seeking refuge behind a nearby tree. A contortion of shotgun, magnum, assault rifle, and even grenade launcher blasts expelled at the same general time, laying waste to whatever they connected with.

When at long last, it subsided, Harvey Alding strode out from behind the tree and, after hollering, "Eat this, fuck-head!" begun firing anew, placing aim for the top of his target's skull.

The bullets sailed forward before sinking into the face of a gun-brute, violently listing it's entire head backward. It staggered in reverse, but quickly recovered, thus it's assailant shifted his aim toward the chest, but before he could squeeze the trigger, the creature did something particularly unexpected.

Kneeling down, it placed a palm against the earth and dashed forward, traveling at a break-neck speed.

Alding wasted no time to digest his opponent's new attack. Once the gap between the two was closed to little more than five feet, he ducked low and rolled to the side, giving the beast nothing more than air to tackle.

"What the fuck do you think you are, John Elleway?" He huffed while recovering to his feet.

In response, the hulking monstrosity clenched a fist and jabbed it forward.

Just as promptly as Harvey rose his only operational arm to block the attack, he jerked backward and swung it out, belting the beast directly across it's face.

As it railed in reverse, quickly capitalized. After launching a knee into it's abdomen, Alding pressed the barrel of his Uzi against the back of the hunched brute's head, and yanked down on the trigger. A flurry of led exploded from the gun and, though not succeeding in completely _eradicating _the victim's head, effectively collapsed the rear portion of it's skull.

Boring a smug expression across his face, the corrections officer loomed over his fallen opponent, finding recreation in it's struggle to stand.

"Consider yourself fraged, scum-bag." He sneered before issuing a harsh kick to it's clavicle,

disabling the sole shoulder that persisted it's fight to remain prominent.

Redirecting his attention to the path, Harvey checked the immediate area for any _other _threats.

He had hardly grown a twenty foot distance from the shaking encounter with the twin girls when his latest skirmish simply _burst_ from the ground.

"Damn…" He mumbled while starting for the trail. "If I didn't have a religion, I'd think these things really _were _from Hell…"

Even though the air had been chilled for the winning portion of the night, occasionally shifting into light showers and strong gusts of wind, Alding had still managed to work up a sweat defending himself. A sweat that would be come all too apparent as his feet continued to toil amongst the path.

_His feet_.

The officer's eyes dropped to the soiled, black steel-toe 'Harley Davidson' boots that had accompanied him this entire way. He smiled inwardly, remembering the short-lived struggle to keep them on his feet during the first few days of his career.

While Harvey may have been a harsh stick and enforcer of the rules, one thing he could simply _not_ find himself agreement in was the thin-layered, poorly assembled and laced footwear that was actually _issue _to the corrections staff.

The day Corrections Officer Harvey Alding showed to work in a pair of rugged, multi-strapped motorcycle boots with a visible steel toe, he caused a visible amount of unrest among inmates and fellow C.O's alike.

He stopped in his tracks, allowing the memories to tether him. It seemed _so _difficult to believe that his lasting mark of the dispute with Abbot's prominent figures, not to mention two years worth of service, disappeared in the course of one night.

Harvey sighed, a small amount of his willpower ebbing away with the expelled breath.

"Where did my life go?" He asked himself.

Ironically enough, his question was greeted by a suggestive answer, "Maybe Carnate took it."

The officer spun on his heel and, swiftly extracting the flashlight from it's space on his belt, casted the luminescence where his earshot instructed.

He cringed mentally at catching site of the eerie twins, and nearly grimaced when a third stepped out from behind them.

Rather than respond, Harvey begun to fumble at his waist for a spare ammunition case.

With his silence reigning, one of the girls continued, "It's done that for hundreds of years. And no one can stop themselves from falling to it."

Alding smiled when his hand gripped around the box. The triplets had him panicked, but there was no chance he would let it openly show.

"Well, you know what they say…" He worked his lungs begun while popping the lid, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it…"

The third girl to appear shook her head, "That isn't true, because now, history has cracked wide open." With that, all the three of them begun to skip down the path. Harvey nearly dropped his open case when the third phased right through his legs.

After shakily gathering his bearings, the officer turned around to see the girls continuing, leading him by a near fifteen foot distance.

"Hey!" He called after them before beginning pursuit. "I'm not done talking to you! What'd you mean by 'History has cracked wide open'?!?"

The trail stretched a short distance before breaking to the right, the thickets that flanked it on both sides prevented a traveler from seeing just _where _it led to.

Whilst sprinting after his query, the corrections officer misjudged a rise in the path's center and, just as promptly as stumbling into it, tumbled forward. Fortunately, quick thinking on his part forced his good arm out, dampering the fall's impact. _Unfortunately_, the triplets had received such a considerable gain by this incident that, by the time he recovered to his feet, they had rounded the corner and were out of site.

Harvey did not immediately persist his chase. As he sparred a minute to dust off, a sudden afterthought entered his mind and cut his actions short. Though even upon this, it was not directly linked to the mysterious girls, something about the ordeal at hand seemed strikingly similar to an old story that was many-a-time relayed amongst the corrections officers at Abbot.

"Something about nineteenth century witch prosecutions…"

His eyes doubled in size as his mind came to terms with the hints.

"Those stakes in the fields!" He gasped. "Dear God, this _can't_ be real!"

Without spending anymore time to collect or sort his thoughts, Harvey was in a mad dash for the trail's break. As smoothly as his legs would allow, the officer arched the turn and stopped short at seeing what he had been led into.

The path spilled into a large clearing- - a stretch of even land that measured a rough hundred square feet. Arising from the flat surface of dark grass were two key structures. One, a narrow, two-story building with a small balcony on the second floor, neighbored the other, a concrete foundation, on top of which there lay a generator and two large fuel tanks. Navigating each edge was a stout fence that stood at a rough nine foot height.

None of this gained Alding's attention so much as the stake that lay between the two constructs.

At three central locations, the triplets stood around the crudely fashioned timber. As Harvey moved in, the soft words that they spoke became audible, "We never thought they would have actually believed us at first, but they _did_!" One said, her gaze not averting from the stake. No time came to pass before the girl next to her continued, "…And they made all the people we didn't like _go away_. It was so much fun, but then…but then…" Where she failed, the third continued, "…But then we got carried away…it went from people we didn't like, to people that made us angry…then to people we just thought we were ugly…"

Harvey was planted to the ground, everything behind the childish spectrums figured out.

"So, the story was true…" He said in a drained tone. All three of the triplets looked toward him at nearly the same time.

"The story of when Carnate was first colonized, and the three little girls that held witch persecutions…"

"We didn't mean to! We didn't think they would believe us so easily!" One protested.

Ignoring her completely, he continued, running on auto-pilot, "Because they were triplets, the villagers were _actually _superstitious enough to believe that they were prophets…"

"We had no way of knowing that!" Another argued, however her voice was frail compared to her words, and tears begun to wail in her eyes.

"Because of their accusations of witchcraft, more than fifteen people were tied to a stake and burnt alive."

"We…we…" That was as far the third would reach into her defense. In unison, all three of the girls fell to their knees and released a series of window-shattering screams.

Harvey railed in reverse when, one by one, the triplet ghosts burst into flames. Taking place within the torrent's confines was a small, charred skeleton. A mangled, stiff main of hair remained in tact at the rear of the skull, and in the sockets were a pair of eyes that burnt more furiously than the fire that consumed them.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Alding fell back and defensively rose his Uzi when one of the flaming undead took flight and soared for him, leaving a trail of flames behind her.

"Alright, hot-shot!" He huffed after springing into a moderate safe-haven, "Let's see how you take to led!"

Though it was difficult to gaze past the swirling flames, with a determined squint of his eyes, Harvey gained a successful view of the head. Swiftly raising his Uzi to eye-level, he jerked on the trigger, subsequently causing a hot stream of bullets to disgorge from the barrel.

The demonic spirit convulsed as the multitude of shells made contact at various points, but did not fall. Though the gunfire could have continued till the target was gone, her sisters had begun to close the distance between her assailant and themselves.

Harvey Alding's head turned in their direction in just enough time to see the twin spirits sailing toward him in a rough X formation.

"Crap!" He hissed before sprinting for the thicket.

His pursuers hot on his heels in more ways than one, the corrections officer was more-or-less forced to perform something crafty- - fortunately, such a maneuver came into view as he neared the first tree of the underbrush.

'Damn, if I can still pull this off, it'll show prove that all that time spent in an acrobatics class really _did _come in handy!' he thought before running straight up the tree, then flipping off of it.

Just as planned, two of the three undead sisters smashed into it's side, immediately setting the Redwood aflame. However, Harvey's landing was far from a ten. Upon colliding feet-first against the ground, he lost his balance and tumbled to, thankfully enough, the side of his unbroken arm.

Where the two burning girls struggled to make a full recovery, Alding only had to retrieve his firearm, and avoid their sister, whom was extending one of her small, flaming arms for him.

His hand groped blindly for the Uzi, and, just as the hand was inches away from his face, the heat of it's fire radiating in spades, Harvey's finger brushed along the cold steel of his prize.

"Bingo!" He exclaimed in victory before swiping it up and squeezing the trigger.

The girl listed in reverse as her midsection was met by a blast of led, and after sustaining the fifth shot screeched piercingly. Toward the end, her voice begun to distort and slow, as if it were being played on a recorder and the pause button was held down, but not completely depressed.

Her fire dissipated as promptly as it had appeared and the skeleton that it once engulfed begun to crumble into a pile of ashes from the feet up.

Harvey huffed while clambering to his knees. As he gazed at his two remaining targets, it was all too easy to conclude that the battle was far from over. However, whilst springing away from their glowing forms, the corrections officer found it easier to operate with the knowledge that they could be killed at _all_.

"Bring it, ya' damn Hell-spawn!" He challenged as the nearest wraith begun to take flight. The ball of flames lifted from the ground and seemingly jettisoned for him, assailing with her hands upon drawing closer. Responsively, Alding jerked to the side and let her pass then, seizing the opportunity, turned and blasted into her back.

Just as quickly as ten rounds were fired in rapid succession, the corrections officer interrupted himself to, again, tear off for the thicket. Based on the subtle amount of observations he took, this new nemesis' primary form of attack was rushing in directly, hoping to set it's prey ablaze.

In this case, it was more than logical to assume that a stick of some sort, used to bat it away, would be the most effective counter.

Harvey did not appear to be receiving much luck as he scanned the immediate area for a fallen branch, roughly five feet away from the outlining trees.

"Terrific." He grumbled while closing the gap, "Gotta' rip one from the tree."

Though upon reaching the destination, he commenced to do just this (neglecting to check the distance of his pursuers) something that lay on the ground nearby, half veiled by the underbrush, gained his focus. Aborting his grip from the limb that Harvey was prepared to tug away, he knelt down and wrapped a hand around the cylindrical object. What was a curiously bewildered expression quickly melted away. Taking it's place was a near ear-to-ear beam as he extracted a led pipe, close to seven feet long.

"Wonder where _this _coulda' come from!" He remarked while whirling around.

Harvey could not have hunched into a batter stance and assumed the defensive a moment too soon. Just as his new weapon came to rest across his shoulder, the nearest wraith was a mere fifteen foot distance away.

"C'mon, ya' cannibal-barbecue gone wrong!" He taunted as the torrent drew the gap tighter,

"Come and get me!"

The fire's radiance grew to a near unbearable heat, and was the perfect sign for Alding to take action. Bracing his arm, he swung the led pipe out in a wide arch, sending it's side to collide directly into the target's chin. The entire jaw dislocated and the girl herself was air-born for more than a half a minute before coming to collide with the ground.

Rather than muse over the prospect of his opposition's upset, Harvey spun on his heel and swung once more. A dull _crack_ took the air as the led pipe smacked into the ribs of the other undead creature. Victim to her own utter surprise, she careened to the side before following her sister's suit to the ground.

Persisting his onslaught with an almost insane passion, the corrections officer lifted the hollow tube above his head and brought it down upon the skull of his victim. At noting that this gambit failed to banish her, he repeated it twice more, the ferocity building with each strike.

At long last, when the third downward cleave connected with the top of her head, the entire skull split open. As the flames extinguished, the wraith's maw opened as if to scream, however nothing emerged.

Knowing there was no time to watch her last moments proceed, Alding revolved around to face his final threat. Relieved of it's jaw and under some strange circumstance, incapable of flying, she trudged toward him, the flames that engulfed her skeletal form almost symbolizing the insatiable malice that consumed her. Harvey watched tensely as she grew closer, his urge to swing dominating his arm. Finally, when the spectrum-girl's arms reached out, whatever barrier held the officer back broke. Alding hefted the pipe over his head once more and brought it down, pushing as much strength into the swing as his aching arm would allow.

The blow connected with an audible thud, sending it's victim stumbling in reverse before falling to her butt. Rather than proceed to snuff her life away by means of violent bludgeoning, her assailant discarded his melee weapon and lifted the Uzi.

"Kiss it goodbye, freak." He mumbled, more to himself than her, before pulling the trigger, subsequently smiting her head. By the end of his altercation, the corrections officer would have a headache, his sweat that was once miniscule had nearly tripled, and his shoulder ached from the pipe. Regardless, he stood, and he continued to be strong.

Long after the last girl was reduced to a pile of ashes, Harvey Alding remained at the clearing attempting to negotiate through the fence that barred him from the light house generator. He found it rather hard to keep focused, however. With each small task that required he look away from his work, his sight would immediately shift to the three keep-sakes of his battle.

At long last, their haunting presence took control. After traipsing over to one of the accumulations of cinder, he mused audibly, "I never thought that that damn story would've been true…" He exhaled sharply before continuing, "They were right about one thing, though. The history of Carnate is cracking open…and everything it held is falling out."

-End Chapter twelve-

Closing note

Absolutely no offense was intended to Jean Sibelius in this fanfiction.

The mild answer to 'how' Raven wound up where she was will come in the next chapter.

A special thanks to Deadric Athena, as I just realized my neglect in showing my gratitude for her gracious compliments. I'm appreciative of _anyone _that takes the time to provide feedback and tell me what they think, but it is those who stick with me through thick and thin that I am especially fond of.

…and if it hasn't become obvious, _yes, _Harvey Alding's time in the military made him a _very _formidable force.


	13. A lonely place to die in

"Frailty"

Chapter thirteen- "A lonely place to die in"

_Any mediocre historian that focuses his studies on America will know of Carnate Island, and it's long, dark history_. Dr. Killjoy's voice flourished within Raven's mind as she slowly begun to emerge from slumber.

What they would 'not' know is just how that history effects Carnate today, and what it brings about at the present moment.

_I can tell you what it has done, but you've already seen it…_

A wince creased her brow. The speaker's words were distinct, but the sounds of her background were slowed and distorted, making her feel as though she were alone with him.

_I can tell you of the evil that it yields, but you've already endured it…_

Her flesh crawled under the influence of a cold, clammy feel, and her heartbeat begun to increase. Something seemed direly unordinary about her accommodations- - something about the _gravity, _but instinct alone was failing to identify.

_I can tell you of the demons that it breeds, but they're already INSIDE you!_

Dr. Killjoy's voice venomously lapsed toward the end, inaverdently causing Raven's jaw to drop for a gasp. When water was received rather than oxygen, the realization that her head was completely submerged elicited. The sorceress' eyes snapped open to immediately display a rusted, poorly maintained ceiling, slightly blurred by ripples of water that washed over her vision.

Immediately thereafter, her head grew light from the lack of air, causing a proverbial 'panic button' within her mind to be struck.

Making record time of bolting into a sitting position, Raven swatted a hand against her chest and begun to cough up the water that had flooded into her lungs, courtesy of the attempt to inhale.

After the struggle to rid herself of the unwanted liquid resulted successful, Raven concentrated to gather her bearings.

She had awoken fully dressed, yet inside the confines of a half-filled, stained-plastic bath tub that was _far _to small to comfortably house a full-grown human being.

Both of her pallid legs arched, bringing the knee above the bath-water's surface, and a single arm was lazily slung over the edge.

The room that lay before Raven was an accurate match to her cramped resting place. With a toilet next to the bathtub and a caddy-cornered counter at the other end of the room, less than ten square feet of roaming space was reserved.

Placing a hand onto the wall of the tub, the sorceress hefted onto her knees and slumped over the edge, splattering the cold bath-water in every direction. In a less-than-graceful manner, she rolled out and landed back-first against the stained linoleum floor below, narrowly evading a collision with the toilet.

Just as quickly, a large puddle begun to take form underneath her and spread out.

Overhead, a glass light-fixture dimly lit the features of the room, casting eerily large shadows across the small stretch of floor that existed.

It wasn't until that illumination struck the surface of the water, casting it's reflection next to her head, did Raven become _perfectly _aware of just how soaked she was.

The bandage that wrapped about her slashed calve was completely saturated, and beginning to unwind itself.

Traveling up from there, her black leotard, which had suffered a blow or two over the course of the night, was bled through at every square inch of the stretched fabric, and the short-lived cascade of amethyst hair that crowned her head was soaked and mopped to her face.

With a migraine still reigning, Raven dropped both hands beside her and pushed herself up, assuming a sitting position despite slight difficulty. Afflicted by exhaustion, a chill that her sopped clothes did little to assist, and just the _slightest _bit hungry, movement to the smallest degree was awarded with a general combination of the above burdens.

A new found motivation for rising to her feet arose when Raven caught sight of her M-16, propped upright against the counter.

Groggily achieving a full recovery, the titan placed one hand against the top of the counter and, after leaning over, wrapped her other around the barrel of the assault rifle.

Whilst hoisting the retrieved firearm into both arms, Raven took note that her magnum had gone missing. Given the bathroom's small size, it wasn't illogical to conclude that it didn't yield the sidearm off one glance.

Shaking her head plaintively, the sorceress gripped the knob of the exit door and swung it outward.

The room that was accessed took rough twenty-square-foot proportions, and was blanketed in darkness. The only source of illumination outside of a narrow band that escaped from the yawning bathroom door were two projectors, positioned toward the very back.

Set up directly across from each other, the aged appliances casted images of wickedly-designed gates upon accordingly arranged doors. Their low hum of operation was the only sound present.

To Raven's immediate right was a flight of stairs that descended upward, it's conclusion blanked out by the thick darkness. Outside of this, there seemed nary another point of interest.

Just before her foot could touch down on the first step, a sharp _click _arose from the back of the room. Less than a second later, the poorly filtered image of Dr. Killjoy appeared directly in front of a half-turned Raven, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin.

"Ah!" The sorceress yelped in surprise while stumbling in reverse.

"Hello!" The ghostly physician greeted, not giving her time to reply before continuing in a recited tone, "Welcome to Doctor Killjoy's clinic for the mentally alienated. Here, my staff and I strive effortlessly to assess and eventually lift the burdens that reside within the minds of our beloved patients. The anatomy of the human brain is a complex one, filled with pertinent operations and emotions. This accounted, my duty can be a difficult one, but it has always been a personal belief of mine that with persistence, dedication, and just a _hint _of unprofessional care, _any _form of insanity or mental anguish can be properly cured. That being said, I pray that, guest or not, you receive what you came for by venturing to my asylum, and assure I will do everything possible to attain it."

With his greeting lecture finished, the projection vanished, leaving behind a heavy silence.

Raven briefly scanned the room for a source to the surprise visit and, after coming up empty-handed, saw herself up the stairwell.

Upon being entered, the hall that held distinction of being the first accessible area on the second floor didn't seem to terribly dark. A short corridor that broke to the left, blood-red carpeting coated the floor, and occasional sconces provided a dim illumination.

The only window immediately present took position directly at the break, and displayed nothing more than pitch darkness and rain-splatters.

Upon arriving at the pane, Raven focused her gaze with a mild amount of intent, and was in turn rewarded by a very vague description of a court-yard toward the bottom, the features of which were impossible to distinguish.

Something toward the bottom corner struck her as odd- -movement, it seemed, but was dismissed as nothing more than the rain.

The various pains and discomforts that shrouded the sorceress' form were an ever-present emphasis that time was of the essence, and stalling to be wary would only cause more problems.

Spinning on her heel, Raven proceeded to venture the remainder of the current hallway which, like it's predecessor, stretched out a short distance before meeting it's end in the form of a break.

Her feet were mere inches away from shuffling into the middle of the two-way fork when a distinct noise emanated from behind her.

A rapping sound.

Her movements fell short as the disruption of the silence grew perceptively louder.

Cautiously, she rose the M-16, and was far from regretful.

When the realization that it was indeed _glass_ being tapped against settled, the window nearest to Raven burst inward, venting it's shards and chunks of frame-support into the hall.

…And in due time, that wouldn't be the only thing to enter.

As the titan staggered in reverse, the primary source of her suspicions bounded into view, shortly thereafter followed by two equally deranged cohorts.

As the first machete' freak rushed in directly, the other two took to scaling the walls and ceiling.

With nothing to manipulate and still unsure of whether her powers would even _work_, Raven reacted to the front by dropping into a crouch, bracing herself, and jerking down on the trigger.

Effectively, four metal slugs ripped through the crotch and abdomen of her direct assailant, making short work of it's respite.

Relieved of an entire limb at the shoulder and gushing pints of blood from the pelvic region, it crumpled to the floor, leaving the duty of killing it's prey in the blades of the remaining two.

Narrowing the gap to less than three feet, the beast that navigated the wall abruptly leapt from it's position and stretched both blades outward in a far-fetched attempt of impalement.

Easily catching a hint, Raven side-stepped the semi-lawn-dart attack, but rather than counter aimed toward the ceiling and discharged a three-round burst into the lower extremities of her secondary enemy.

The first assault fatally blew away both legs. It's follow-up crudely severed the creature from it's waist down.

Rather than fall to the floor with it's other half, the torso remained at the ceiling, suspended by a blade that had embedded into the sheet-rock.

Unable to be detained by the gullet, it's intestines hung from the gapping underside, assuming the guise of a gruesome, dripping wind-chime.

With no time or desire available to admire the scene, Raven pulled back and persisted her return-attack, shooting three more rounds in the direction of the final threat. It, however, was more agile than expected, despite the failed nose-dive attack.

Just as the first two bullets grew dangerously near, the beast, quite literally, bent over backward, not only avoiding the attack on it's life, but also achieving what could only be described as a 'coffee table' stance.

Holding strong, it rushed forward. The missed shots pierced the wall, and a moment later their former target recovered into a standing position, still in motion.

Screeching a possible bout of gloats, it lunged in, taking a wide slash with each step.

Driven in reverse, Raven avoided each attack, but was not granted the time to counter.

The score would only grow worse when her mid-back met with the sill of a window, discontinuing the ability to dodge.

Unlike the last few encounters, this beast wasted no time to seemingly muse over it's victory.

As quickly as Raven's back-tracking was stopped, it raised a blade above it's head and brought it down. In that instant, everything seemed capitalized and accounted for…save the completely open mid-section. Sheer seconds before a deadly blow over the skull could connect, Raven's foot launched into the stomach of her assailant, sending it staggering on a brief trip backwards.

The beast quickly recovered and begun to reproach, however in the time wasted, it's rival M-16 had been placed at chest-level.

Without a second thought, Raven pulled the trigger a single time, accordingly firing one round into the ribs of her enemy.

For the second occasion, the creature railed in reverse, half of it's upper-torso collapsed as a parting gift. It's vain attempt to shrug the violent collateral damage off ended in a gust of pain as two more slugs sailed into it, the first catching it's shoulder and the second blasting through the cage to acquire a head-shot.

Such considerable impact arose from the final blow that the machete' beast's entire form was rammed, head-first, into the wall behind it.

A large splatter of blood marked the zone of impact, veiling the bullet-hole that lay behind it.

Peace ensued the battle, however a sense of ease was far from accompanying. Raven sat against the windowsill briefly, letting the droplets of rain, driven by aggressive wind, sweep over her back. Their steady implication of meeting with the earth filtered through a soft _plip, plip, plip_ sound.

…And this ambience was the only thing that proved dominant over the silence.

It was then that Raven decided _now _was a good time to test her powers.

Sliding from the sill, she focused her concentration onto one prerogative- -flight. With little difficulty, the Azarathian girl lifted from the ground and, whilst air-born, assumed a standard meditating position. She smiled inwardly, knowing that this was the result of a successful venture, but did not get her hopes entirely up.

Flight was one thing. A _basic_ thing.

Manipulation was a completely separate, and slightly more complex, field. Worse, there was nary an object in the corridor to trial herself on.

For whatever reason, her gaze shifted to one of the fallen opposition.

"…Or _is _there?"

A distinguished chant later, the dark cloud of black magic enveloped the dead beast's form and pulled it into the air, disregarding many-a-law of physics. Generally, her powers barred her from utilizing other beings, but should one be killed, common logic stated that it was little more than an inanimate object.

Common logic didn't let the sorceress down.

Glad, but not losing her composure, Raven added a proclaimed 'finisher' to her test-run.

Abruptly, the decapitated creature propelled forward with considerable velocity and smashed through a nearby window, catapulting it into the courtyard below.

A subtle, smug expression donned upon the telekentic's face as she touched down, meeting the floor without so much as a faint noise.

Ignoring the vague desire to remain there and dispose of the _other _two monsters in a likewise fashion, Raven begun to reproach the two-way break, ducking to avoid the dangling internals of her second counted 'victim'.

The distance closed to about five feet when the peace was once more disrupted. In comparison to the last occasion, it was not a rapping, and the feeling of dread that hung within the back of Raven's mind failed to arise.

The disturbance was somewhere in the next hallway. Upon making a sharp round of the corner, the sound elaborated itself as emanating from the right corridor. Short, narrow and lit by a sole sconce, it was featureless, save a yawning doorway toward the very end.

Raven gazed over her shoulder, seeing that the passage behind her traveled much further, and broke into multiple rooms and hallways, before deciding to investigate further into the matter at hand. As she drew closer, the sound begun to form fluid speaking. Despite being too low-pitched and distant to distinguish actual _words_, the sorceress quickly concluded that it was _not _the effect of a real conversation. The tone and texture of the speaker's voice never faded or broke off, and seemed to be filtered through something.

Just outside the doorway, everything came together. The room that lay before her was of medium proportions, in comparison to the last full chambers entered. Each of the four walls were under-layered by columns of shelves, cabinets, cupboards and other common, mounted storage units.

Occupying the center of the floor was what could almost be identified as a hospital bed. Due to the thick darkness that enveloped her new-found surroundings, it was impossible for Raven to identify any other details. A flashlight that had fallen to the base of the aforementioned bed was the only means to which she knew of it's existence, and because of this, was _completely _oblivious to what resided upon the top.

Wrapping her fingers around the middle of the hand-held light-source, Raven shined it's luminescence in the direction of the sound which, by that time, was all but distant.

The speaking had now been identified as the rambling of a classic fifties radio-show, and sure enough, when the flashlight struck upon the source, it was revealed to be a small, battery-operated radio, fairly recent in it's design.

The titan's eyebrow arched.

"That thing is new…" She identified to herself, "Which means someone was here just recently…"

Something suddenly brushed against her backside, causing the train of thought that ran rampant to snap.

Whirling around, she casted the flashlight downward, where an outstretched, white hand was unveiled.

The small diameter of light quickly shifted to the top of the bed and came to rest upon the face of a clearly deceased corrections officer.

Mouth agape and both eyes opened just as wide, a reflective metallic device clamped around his forehead, eliciting the realization that his death had come at the hands of an electrocution bench. Both arms had been slung over his chest, but due to the sloppy position, left room for an imbalenced error.

The hollow brown eyes seemed to be besieging with the titan that they lifelessly reflected to save the lost soul whom possessed them, even past the final venture of death.

Raven's reaction was far from that assumption.

Her shocked and terrified scream echoed throughout the west wing of the asylum, briefly catching the attention of every living being that hermited within it.

Silence hardly followed. Even when her voice eventually subsided from the rooms and corridors, the radio continued to play, emitting it's positive message to a phantom audience, "Never, ever let the burdens of life win you over. Bad predicaments have never been known to last _unless _the person they afflict perpetuates them. The dark, angst-engulfed corner of your mind is a lonely place to die in, and being lost within it is even _worse_, so don't allow it to occur.

No matter what happens, don't flinch, and never let that corner expand. I'm afraid my time has run out, but always keep in mind what I have said, and don't let it falter. Good night, folks, keep a strong, upright posture, and remember, the light at the end of the tunnel is never far!"

-End chapter 13-

Rambling

Should the dear reader (Whoever that may be) have gotten to this, I reached the snap-decision this past week raise my artistic interest from the dust and mothballs that it's been gathering over the past year and a half. As a result, a sketch of Raven's encounter with Hermes elicited.

Should anyone at all be interested, there are two freshly added links to them in my profile.

…As a foot-note, should you choose the Photobucket link, there's a real-life picture of yours truly in there.

If you take any interest in that, I'm the dude on the right, wearing a gray cap. It was taken at an anime con waaaaay the Hell back in October. I've lost about twenty pounds, gained some muscle mass, and my hair's grown out since then, but it's still pretty accurate.

Till the next update,

JackoMegane


	14. Lost, is the solution

"Frailty"

Chapter fourteen- "Lost, is the solution"

The floorboards emitted a strained groan from underneath their carpeting as a flash of indigo bolted across the threshold. Successfully arrived in the hall, Raven spun on her heel and seized the knob of the door behind her. A hectic manifestation of fear controlling her limbs, she jerked backward to slam it, but failed to catch the latch.

Operating under the assumption that all was well, she aborted her grip from the knob. As if to reward her for her arrogance, the door begun to slowly swing out. .

Frantically, Raven repeated herself, doubling her strength. The plate latched into it's commandeering wall unit, but the sorceress exerted _far _too much energy, and ultimately tumbled over onto the floor.

She lay still briefly, trying her very hardest to collect her bearings.

Taking in an unsteady breath, she reflected upon the dead C.O. This wasn't the most frightening, nor surprising situation she had been in tonight. Not by a long shot.

"So why am I so scared?" She worked her lungs to ask little more than herself. Though an answer never came, the query seemed to instill a mild enough amount of courage in the sorceress to return her to her feet. A clap of thunder made her start in surprise, but assisted to get her moving once more.

The only un-navigated corridor contained a set of double-doors toward the midpoint, and a break to the right at it's conclusion. Reluctant step-by-step, Raven begun to venture the hallway.

She proceeded without disturbance, till the double doors drew near. A series of deep, heavy _booms _arose, like colossal footsteps. They brought with them such impact that the entire corridor begun to tremble. Shrugging the M-16 into her hands, the mystic fell back and prepared herself for the worst. The worst came in due time.

Seconds after the rifle was raised, a section of wall across from the double doors exploded outward, sending gibs of busted wood onto the floor.

From the crude hole that remained, there stumped such an abomination that Raven couldn't find it in herself to open fire. Or, for that matter, do _anything_, save blankly stare.

In it's own light, it appeared to have descended directly from the nightmares of a madman. Whilst stepping into the corridor, it turned toward Raven, letting her in on all of the details she could have lived happily never knowing.

Generalized, the horrific beast seemed to be a roughly eight-foot tall mass of stitched, bronze flesh, and disproportionate muscles. Jutting from beneath the skin of the forearms were series of large, crooked blades, caked in a contortion of blood and rust.

A bizarre metal contraption that fitted the rear of the skull sent two wickedly carved tusks of iron into the corners of it's mouth, stretching it inhumanly back across the face.

That accounted, a maul full of razor-sharp teeth was constantly exposed. Had it been viewed from the behind, one would see a tail stem from the rear of this disturbing torture-mask, and navigate down the back, acting as a scrap-iron spine. From the center, it begun an entire metallic skeletal anatomy, making the resultant impervious to most imaginable forms of attack.

Raven of course, was oblivious to this.

When the beast whirled around, opting to proceed down the hall, her trance of fear broke. Placing the M-16's butt against her forearm, she frantically yanked down on the trigger, firing off a lethal three-round burst. The bullets sailed for their target, but upon making contact simply bounced off, not even succeeding to break skin.

Raven face-faulted while retreating. Her best defense aside from manipulation was proven to be about as effective as a blank round. However this new, terrifying foe failed to register the mystic.

It's back casted to her, the brute stumped noisily down the hall, completely disregarding not only her existence, but also her attempt on it's life.

She stood still for some time after the beast rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

It seemed that no matter how far from her it grew, the low rumbling that implicated it's motion remained just as clear and distinct as when it was no more than ten feet before her.

…But there was something else.

When it was near, the creature seemed so _very_ familiar. In contrast with the rest of Carnate, Raven didn't feel alien to it.

And while that may have been a more acceptable feeling than the other worries of dread, hopelessness and despair, it wasn't entirely good.

Like it's peers, Raven could sense only evil within the abomination; a pure manifestation of the island's demons.

_Evil as it might be…_The telekinetic thought while approaching the hole from which the beast made it's surprise entrance, _There was still something I saw in it that I haven't seen in 'any' of the others…_

Indeed, she had not failed to notice that agonized look upon it's torn face. A pleading expression, it almost seemed.

But that didn't answer what it was.

It didn't answer why it was here.

And it didn't answer why she felt so close to it.

What lay beyond the wall was an average-sized rectangular chamber. Toward the rear was a narrow, octagonally framed cage, half of which was busted and bent outward. A bulked antique generator was positioned alongside, and wired to, it.

Save this, the secret room was featureless.

Studying closer, Raven noticed a large, heavy cord sprout from behind the generator and feed through the wall that it lay in front of.

Just like the prison, this place was caught in the middle of a power-surge that rendered such appliances useless.

Recovering from the cavernous-looking hole, the telekinetic turned toward the double doors.

The twin obstacles were shut securely, and looked undisturbed. Such a bearing died promptly as Raven's hand placed upon the knob and turned. With her position held, she paused to asses herself. After what just happened, a solemn decision to play it as safe as possible was made.

The M-16 gripped in her other hand, she silently counted to herself.

"…1." What little space lay between Raven and the door was closed to nothing, as the titan leant against it.

"…2." Her grip around the knob grew inordinately tight, and the urge to simply kick the door down and rush in was successfully resisted.

"…3!" The heavy barrier swung fully outward, it's own momentum driving it with such force that it ran into, and rebounded off of, a wall.

With the rifle armed in both hands, Raven stormed in, prepared to lay waste to the entire room.

Her respite, however, quickly died as she caught an eye-full of her new surroundings.

By all obvious accounts, the new chamber was definantly a rec. room.

Two large sofas and a coffee table positioned in the center dubbed it as such. Dominating the middle of the left hall was a sizeable holea scene daftly similar to the initial corridor.

As if to be repugnant, it led into a massively proportioned room.

Raven failed to take note of her own locale before approaching the crude gap.

The large area dropped nearly ten feet, providing space for both levels.

From the floor begun to flights of stairs that climbed into a second-story walkway. There were numerous doors within the enormous room, one of which was easily assumed to be the entrance, with it's stained-glass windows that dominated the center and a lavishly intricate frame-design. All of them, however, were barred by the same wicked gate-like projection.

Disarming her rifle, Raven crouched into the cavity to get a closer look, but stopped short when a thickly accented voice rung from behind her, "You may wanna' watch yer' step…"

Due to this disruption's relative normalcy, it wasn't difficult for the mystic to digest, then turn to investigate.

Nestled in the corner of the room was a scene that, either due to the prevailing shadows or simply her blind-sided tendencies upon entering, Raven failed to notice.  
A single-seat thimble chair was positioned where the walls met, as if to provide it's occupant a convenient view of the area's entirety. Crumpled between the arm-rests was a corrections officer whose appearance matched well with the broken English he spoke. Slicked jet black hair, a narrow, angular face, and mocha tinted skin indicated Porto-Rico, but held no guarantees.

It wasn't until Raven's gaze dropped to the vicinity of his feet, seeing a scattered assortment of empty beer cans, did she pick up the dank smell of alcohol. One glance at his eyes was all it took to conclude that the ethnic C.O was, for lack of a better term, plastered.

"Watchu' doin' here, eh?" He asked abruptly, causing her studying to fall short. She stalled to answer, unsure of how to talk to a drunk, then replied, "I'm looking for someone."

"Really?" The officer queried while crossing his legs, "I come her wit' two of my buddies to just relax…the world's been _so _crazy for the past few hours…Is it one o' them yer' lookin' for?"

"No, it's actually…" Raven trailed.

It's actually _what_? The nefarious wraith of a doctor that lived some hundred years ago?

"…It's actually someone that might be able to help me off this island." She replied in a hastened tone. True to form, it was uninformative, but that was small exchange for sounding like someone that actually _belonged _in this establishment when it was in it's prime.

"Bah!" The officer responded promptly.

"That was all _anyone _thought about when those Diablos showed up. _Stay indoors, block all the openings, always carry protection._" He interrupted himself to produce a mocking 'pffft'.

"I am _real_ man, y'know? Die when the Lord says I'm good n' ready."

Raven nodded, but was hardly focused on his words.

"Anywho, if this person yer lookin' for's anywhere, 's probably gonna' be the operating room."

This was enough to gain the telekinetic's attention.

"Really?" She asked, "Where?"

The officer unsettled from his seat slightly to gesture toward the hole, "Second door on the right in that room. But you can't get in there…"

"I know…" Came a prompt reply, "Those projections have the entire place sealed off."

"Ah, it ain't tough to get rid o' those, just break what's castin' 'em. Your _real_ problem is the door. Whoever owned this place last chained and padlocked it down…" He leaned forward, "Musta' been somethin' he _really _didn't want anyone to know about in there…"

Raven's brow creased in thought. "So…I suppose I have to find a key…" She concluded, then looked toward the officer. "And you probably have no idea where it is, right?"

"I gotta' _perfect _idea where it is." Her drunk informant responded knowingly, then swatted the breast-pocket of his coat, "'S right here on me. 'N I tell you what, Ima' give it to you on one lil' bity condition…"

The mystic fought the urge to roll her eyes before replying, "…And what would that be?"

"Well, as you can see, the asylum's in a bituva' black-out…That don't bother me, since most everything in here's too old to work anyway, but…" He threw a glance toward the coffee table. Occupying the center was an antique radio, in fairly good condition despite it's clearly advanced age. "There was _one _thing. My tunes, they ah…help me keep calm. But as you can see, the power-surge killed 'em, so…"

"So you want me to get it back." Raven finished for him. Rather than verify, he continued, "The generators are in the attic. Not sure why, but _something_ up there keeps turnin' 'em off, so all you'll probably have to do is flip a switch."

The telekentic face-faulted while preparing to leave.

"Somehow, I don't think it's going to be that easy."

Instead of offering conscolence, the corrections officer called after her, "Me neither. Those

Raven thought it odd, briefly, how the last corridor she had occupied wasn't such a distressing scene till the beast made it's appearance. Though the hole it created dominated vaguely less than a quarter of the wall, it distributed so much damage that wide cracks seered across the surface with such depth that they resembled fault lines. Wherever the destructive freak-show stepped, it left behind a near inch-deep depression in the flooring.

For Raven, this did not become a realization till she reached the break and nearly vaulted over. Recovering from the stumble, she dropped her gaze to the ground to see not only the culprit, but two columns of likewise prints begin from their creator's point of entry, and stretch on till the rounded the corner.

Ultimately, this assisted to track every place it ventured.

Focusing more on that than her surroundings, the titan ventured into the next hallway.

Like it's predecessor, the corridor was lit only by candles. There was an utter absence of windows, and the distance in terms of width was drawn much tighter. At the conclusion of a near fifteen foot trip, it forked to the left and right, and possessed another break at the midpoint. The trail held duration for the entire hall, then led to the left.

Though she wanted to believe she could brave that terror once more, Raven feared inside. Not because of it's bearing.

Not because of the destructive power that it very clearly possessed, but because of that close relation she felt to it.

To know it was one thing.

To feel like it was connected to her was another.

'_And it's the worst feeling on Earth…'_ She identified to herself while approaching the initial break.

With her fear confirmed and more-or-less accepted, it seemed easier to grab at the first explorable straw available.

However, it still didn't yield much reward.

At the entrance, the floor dropped into a staircase, the end of which she couldn't see past an ordinarily thick blanket of shadow.

Not averting her gaze from the darkness, the mystic reached a hand toward her waist for the flashlightand gained the urge to kick herself at remembering it had been abandoned less than five minutes after it was discovered.

Gradually, she lowered a foot onto the first step, and let the venture proceed from there with an incramental pace. It almost seemed that, with each inch she grew deeper into the well, the darker it became. Even when the last grace of light was dispersed from her eyes, and pitch blackness reigned, it grew darker still.

The anxiety this gave the telekinetic took a reflexive toll when there came a low growl from behind her, and the entire flight of stairs commenced to explode in a flurry of gunfire.

Raven was not able to identify just _what _it was that assailed her from behind before the recoil from the M-16 caused her to lose balance and tumble over.

The tulmutous venture did not end till the last step, where she came to rest in a crumpled pile.

A second later, the corpse of her attacker flopped over before her, bent over the neighboring step.

Her breath catching in her throat, Raven hastily scooted away, keeping the rifle clutched in one hand. After attaining what logically seemed a safe distance, she sat still and waited, not only unsure of whether or not she had actually _killed_ it, but also just what it _was_.

Nearly two full minutes passed, and the sorceress remained dormant, squinting her hardest to make out some type of form.

Swallowing some of her nerve, she slowly reached a hand out, and ran two fingers across the surface of it's flesh.

The texture was dry and rough, the arm of a machete' beast in her best judgement, though it was still difficult to identify. Advancing by less than an inch, she wrapped her hand around the limb's entirety, and slid down, waiting to feel the cold steel of a blade.

Though a mundane and questionable task, Raven found beads of sweat begin to roll down the side of her head as she neared the wrist.

Again, she leaned in. There couldn't possibly be more than a meter left…

INTERESTING. 

The guest voice boomed with a startlingly inept acoustic ability, nearly causing the sorceress to fall over once more at her own surprise. Hastily, she scrambled to her feet as a spectrum of light flooded the stairwell. It was then that the sconces which caused this became visible.

_Most intriguing how, before you were brought to Carnate, you exhibited a strong personal disfavoritism with light, but now it presents itself as SUCH a valuable companion. It just goes to show that you don't really know what you have, until it is taken away, though I'm sure by now you've realized how good you had it at home…._

Raven quickly straightened her posture.

"Doctor Killjoy." She identified, "You _made _it grow so dark?"

_Indeed, I did, dear. _The wraith answered, absent of smugness. _Immortality in the form I earned yields many such…rewards, if you shall. Regardless, that was merely an experiment…something to gauge how quickly you scare. With that, I do believe my spectation has taught me everything I need to construct a proper analysis. Do hurry and meet me in the operating room. _

Raven stood still for some time after Doctor Killjoy's voice faded from her mind, brooding over what he said.

_So much about this island left her like this. _

He was inevitably rightDespite everything the sorceress had been through, she never felt more lost than when her vision was clouded by darkness.

And yet she did so much to seclude herself from it back home.

She lifted her head, some of that homesickness that resulted dying.

For the time being, it didn't matter. The light was here, and it wasn't going anywhere. Raven hefted the M-16 up and began to venture into a narrow corridor that the staircase led unto.

In light, it ended almost as quickly as it began. Five feet length-wise saved just enough space to freely walk around in.

To the left was a pair of heavy double doors, comprised of a pallid green stone material.

"Ivory…" The sorceress identified while running a hand across the surface.

The center of each door bore the word "Theatre", engraved with just enough depth to distinguish it from the other designs.

Grabbing a handle, she applied only a small amount of pressure, and opened it with more ease than she assumed for such a massive structure.

What it accessed was, indeed, a theatre, though toward the roof it assumed more of a cathedral architecture. A rectangular portion of the floor yielded two columns of benches and stretched forward from the entrance an even twenty four feet before giving way into an elevated stage.

Small, orb-shaped fixtures that glowered with a supernatural light were recessed into the walls, and lit only a small radius of the space before them.

The stage itself was the more grabbing of features within the room. The ceiling dropped lower than that of it's neighboring bleacher section, and possessed a metallic chute near the center.

At the very rear wall, a rectangular sheet of metal stood, sloppily leant against the wall as if to conceal something. Tied to the top of this was a standard, hemp rope that stretched up to the ceiling and looped into a small hook. From there, it led to a heavy block of led, stored safely within a small compartment in the wall.

Generalized, this presented a rough pulley system; Should the block be dropped from it's accommodations, the sheet that barred the entrance to _whatever_ lay behind it would be raised.

Though the area looked clear, Raven warily kept her rifle raised while advancing for the stage.

Without having to disarm it, she climbed up and ventured across the hardwood floor of the proscenium, forming a B-line for the sheet.

Upon arrival, the mystic knelt down and examined the obstacle closer. From the side, it revealed itself to be at least two inches thick; Impossible to simply push out of the way.

This left only one logical solution. Slowly, she lifted her gaze toward the hook.

The block was up far too high to knock down by any conventional means. Levitation however made it, at the very least, possible.

A vain attempt to gather the concentration for such a feat would hardly make it into those initial budding words of montra before there arose a bloodcurdling shriek from overhead. It carried with an echo that presented it's source as dropping through the chutesoon to arrive unto the stage.

Raven froze momentarily at this, taken aback by the audibility it possessed, then regained her senses and swept away just in time to miss a downward cleave from a machete' beast whom plummeted from above.

Taking it's presence in, she raised the rifle to fire, but was ungainly seized by something behind and, before receiving much time to tell what was even _occurring_, found herself nearly ten feet in the air. The telekentic looked around her waist, where she had been grabbed at, to see an arm, absent of flesh and coated in a thick, clear puss-like material.

Such an external description brought only one culprit to mind.

"_Nooseman!_" She gasped, then raised her eyes skyward to see the eerie, unmoving puddle of blood it goaled itself as pulling her into.

Indeed since the last encounter, she had thrown together an uncreative, but honorably accurate name for this particular foe. And like that instant, she had no intention of being pulled into it's vortex.

Thinking quickly, she sought out her fastest option; The led block which, by this point, was about eye-level to her. Reciting the chant in a single breath, she shrouded the heavy form in a dark haze and shot it into her hands, nearly dropping it in victim to it's overwhelming heft.

Though it struggled to maintain, Raven's captor was incapable of carrying both the weight of she, and the block, soon thereafter allowing it's grip to slip.

Levitation caught the sorceress with considerable ease, allowing her the safety to let go of the heavy block, then spring off the stage. Seeing it's plan fall to pieces, the 'Nooseman' renewed it's pursuit, and was in turn met by the broadside of the very object that foiled it's first attempt.

Both it and the block sailed for the ground thereafter.

Raven had returned to the ground to see that her threat of the machete beast quadrupled, and was all too ready to advance upon her. Past this, the sheet of metal had been raised up to the ceiling, leaving behind a small panel of switches.

The nearest Hell spawn gave a foreboding shriek as it proceeded for her. The M-16 she had prepared in advance barked a careless reply with a three round burst of led that cut the offending freak down. The other three seemed to take this in as a warning sign, and split into completely opposite directions, one of them going as far as to scale up the wall.

Pulling beside her, the first arrived beast feigned outward, and came up utterly short as it's quarry sprung away. Easily seeing an open-spot at the ribs, Raven leveled the rifle and fired, easily catching it's weak zone.

Victim to it's own ignorance, the creature careened off to the side and hit the ground in a bleeding heap.

The mystic continued to fall back with this victory, attempting to gain as much space between her assailants and herself as possible. The beast that took to the walls had arrived at the ceiling before beginning it's attack, initializing it through another surprise-drop. All too knowing of the situation, it's target strode off to the side, coming to a safe-haven just as it landed.

Deciding to utilize her powers once more, Raven recited her chant and with it, uprooted one of the seating bleachers, then commenced to lawn-dart it into her more distant threat. Guided by the offending bench, it propelled backward before crashing into a wall, leaving the busted zone of impact and a graphically mutilated corpse behind as a keepsake to the asylum.

Backpeddaling, the mystic eliminated the last threat with her rifle, firing two slugs into it, which ripped much of the upper torso apart.

In outcome, the theatre looked like something of a warzone, littered with bodies, bullet holes, and spent ammo cases. Raven stood amongst it, halfway surprised by the relative ease of this particular encounter. Either they were getting weak, or she was becoming prone to Carnate's ways.

Considering the nature of the island, she wasn't sure whether to lean toward the latter, or not.

Looking back toward the goal of this altercation, it was found to be a panel intended for controlling several functions of the island. Despite the power being down, the glow of the small switches remained intact, signifying not only full operation, but also the doing of Doctor Killjoy.

_Everything in this place was his doing. _

Several columns of levers and switches played out on the panel, and gave discrete labels at the top, such as "Water", "Heat", and "Locks".

Needless to say, Raven explored the last option. Most of the side-labels to each switch displayed little more than an incoherent collaboration of letters and digits, the last one, however, held a distinct significance as "ATTIC".

Without a second thought, she flipped it. There was no sound of verification, but that was rationally expected. With no other reason to stay, she climbed to her feet and saw herself back to the staircase. Though the memory of her first venture down lingered, the trip itself was uneventful, something Raven found herself grateful for right up until she arrived at the top step, then proceeded to return to the stairwell's foyer.

Like the last occasion this narrow, scarcely lit corridor was explored, the telekinetic paid more mind to the trail left upon the floor-boards than where she was actually _going_. This mainly accounted for her surprise when she rounded the left corner where it led, and was met by a dead-end, the likes of which hardly even exceeded ten feet. The trail simply ended at the wall, and displayed no signs of turning around, or relocating anywhere else.

Raven did not avert her gaze from this until she backpedaled into the right turn, and proceeded into another hall. The moment she entered, there came a greeting. A noise, and while not uncommon, it proved itself to be slightly more frantic than that of it's predecessors.

A dull, constant flopping sound that rose in pitch, and occasionally gained and lost it's repetition.

On the right were two doors, both shut and undisturbed, and toward the end, more noticeable than the others, a stairwell folded out from the ceiling.

Raven flung the first door she came to open in a haste, knowing that the source of the sound did not lay behind this. A bare, small padded room was revealed. Though it was smeared with blood stains, nothing more than this resided between the four walls.

Raven backed out and, sure to close the door behind her, moved onto the next option.

On this occasion, she placed an ear against the door's surface, attempting to hear out the room that lay behind it.

Sure enough, that flopping noise grew perceptively louder. After placing a hand on the door, she turned and shoved it open, then sprung back in preparation to open fire. What rewarded her cautiousness was easily the most brutal sight to have been beheld over the night.

On the floor lay the form of what could at one time have possibly passed for a corrections officer. With his legs and arms severed, he struggled and squirmed about helplessly, almost as if the asylum would not grant him the release of death.

Raven on looked this just long enough to receive all the details, then backed out and fell against a wall. On cue, her mind released a flood-gate of the very first human being encountered on this island, and how tortured _he_ had appeared, and it raised a question of just how easy it would be for _her _to end up in such a position. During this, that ever-constant flopping sound proceeded, and seemed to gain more depth.

_Ah, I see you've stumbled upon another one of my experiments. _Doctor Killjoy interrupted, not allowing Raven the time to reply before continuing, _Did you know that the average human being only uses twenty percent of the full capacity their mind contains? This little delve into the human anatomy proved my theory that sometimes it is the 'body' that restricts us from capitalizing on the brain's full potential. _

The telekinetic returned to the doorway and forced herself to stare into the crudely mutilated torso once more to place aim. She then looked away and proceeded to pull the trigger. A dull shot rung across the hall, then all was quiet.

"You're _sick_…" She hissed amid the silence, and received a rather unexpected answer,

_Sick I may be, dear, but at least it isn't part of 'my' species' nature…._

The attic, as Raven had anticipated the fold-out staircase to lead to, was a massive, empty room with little walking space. Two wide bands of concrete ran alongside each other at opposite ends of the area. Aside from this, there was a sea of insulation stuffed between columns of narrow support boards. The ceiling, at one particular locale, looked as though it had just been hit by a hurricane. A hole dominated much of center, achieving such a size that the rain cascading from over head drown much of the underlying section of the attic out. Further ahead land-marked the form of a large object, mostly blanked out by shadows. Though she begun to head into it's direction, something caught the corner of her eye; A small, black object tucked into the insulation nearby.

Crouching down, she swept the yellow, cotton-candy-like substance aside and plucked from it a projector. Though the insulation immediately repopulated the area where the old appliance once resided, the vague form of a hole towards the bottom remained visible. Dangling it by one of the large wheels on-top, the sorceress shined it's projection onto what little remained of the ceiling.

Sure enough, the image of a gate flashed across the worn surface. In the center it bore the words, "Operating room". Smirking, she discarded it to the side, then continued on her way.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, providing the otherwise dark attic with less than a second of illumination. This assisted Raven in finding that the sizeable form she approached was indeed a generatora cylindrical form that possessed two panels toward the bottom.

Upon arriving, she dropped to the foot of the machine and squinted through the dark to read any possible identification of the switches that scattered the flat surface.

One in particular caught her attentionA faint stenciling that read "Central Unit" was positioned above a small latch.

A low hum of operation permeated throughout the attic as the generator set to it's tasks of restoring power to the asylum. Raven recovered to her feet and looked around. Nothing had changed, and in an ultimate result, it remained this way right up until she retraced her steps back to the rec. room.

A hallway shy of the destination, an electric guitar shuddered across the air. Raven didn't find the tune anywhere _near _familiar, but regardless picked up the pace.

Just outside of the door, the lyrics flooded her earshot in a less than glorious manner.

"I jump into my rocket, 'cause I'm ready to blast!

I dunno' where I'm goin', but I'm gettin' there fast!

Don't know if there ain't a future, but there isn't a past!

Make it like the first time so it won't be the last…"

The mystic entered the rec. room in just enough time to hear The Brian Setzer Orchestra's "In the mood" pass through it's chorus line. Though it blared loudly enough to wake the dead, she managed to hear the officer shout over it, "'EY! THERE SHE IS!"

"DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YA' FOUND MY FRIENDS, BUT YA' BROUGHT BACK MY TUNES, AND THAT"S MORE IMPORTANT! HERE!" With that being the only warning, he produced a key from his coat and tossed it in Raven's direction, which was caught without incident.

"IF YA' WANNA' SHORCUT, JUST DROP INTO THE HOLE, BUT YA' MIGHT WANNA' BRACE YOURSELF. IT'S A LOOONG FALL!"

Though she would have preferred to simply levitate down, the sorceress was reluctant to do such in front of the officer, and instead scooted off the side. She landed on her feet with a dull _wunt _and quickly recovered. At the other end of the room sat her destinationThe only door _absent_ of a projection.

Without reluctance, the telekinetic approached and set to unlocking the numerous padlocks strung to a series of inter-looping chains that draped about the door. One by one, she negotiated through the barring obstacles, till all of them were dismissed to the floor.

The foyer that lay beyond this door did not account for much of the asylum's space, despite leading into one of the establishment's most pertinent rooms. Achieving less than ten feet of width, it traveled forward a likewise measurement before arriving at the final door.

With a slower pace than what she entered the corridor with, Raven clasped the handle, and swung the final barrier between herself and this long-awaited room outward, then slipped inside.

The first thing she could not help but notice was the light. In contrast to the rest of his asylum, Doctor Killjoy's operating room was vividly lit, and though it was of an odd architecture, not even a lone corner was touched by shadow.

The second thing that came to mind were the projectors_they were everywhere_. Raven counted well over six of them in the central section of the room alone.

The area's last feature more or less had to bring _itself _to the mystic's attention. As she wandered in, a booming growl projected from overhead, causing her to immediately redirect her focus toward the ceiling, where a large cage was suspended by two thick steel cables.

Trapped within it's confines was the beast.

She gasped and moved back as it tried in vain to free itself, using one of the massive blades that protruded from it's arm.

It was at this moment that Doctor Killjoy decided to make it's appearance, via one of the many projectors stationed in the room.

_So glad you could make it, dear. _He greeted after appearing beside her.

"_Doctor Killjoy!" _She exclaimed while stepping in reverse, "What are you planning to do with me? And what…" She pointed toward the cage, "Is that…_thing_?"

The wraith smirked disarmingly. _Well, can't you see the resemblance, dear? _He asked, _It's you!_

_A hybrid of the evil that resided within you even 'before' you arrived here, and the very foundation of Carnate Island. They make a rather handsome picture together, do they not?_

Sarcasm weighted his tone toward the end.

_As for what I planned for you…I can safely say that you are the most unique case I've seen to date. 'Far' too complex to safely diagnosis without receiving a full verification of what I have learned…and the only way to do 'that' is to operate… _

As he said this, a small horde of beasts materialized behind him. The sorceress' eyes grew wide as she clued into his intentions. .

_I'm very sorry it had to end like this, but I knew it would all along…the most secure way to learn how your mind functions is to split it open and explore for myself. _

He advanced, as did his staff of monstrosity, all too excitedly prepared to butcher their victim.

_I am a man of science. Not mercy. Now, stay still, and I promise it will be fast…Painless, however, I cannot guarantee._

"No!" Raven gasped.

-End Chapter 14-


	15. The Rebirth

"Frailty"

Chapter fifteen- "The Rebirth"

A dull flash of silver caught Raven from the corner of her eye, subsequently causing her to drop into a crouch. Less than a second later, a crescent blade swept through the space that her neck once occupied.

She stuffed the prospect of what _could _have resulted had she not possessed such foresight down, and tore off for the nearest wall.

_Is such evasion truly necessary, dear? _Doctor Killjoy called after her, his menacing disciples simply phasing right through him as they chased their quarry.

_Have you even 'considered' the charity I am attempting to bestow upon you? _

Raven, too preoccupied to respond, fled from her pursuers in a particularly lost state of mind, till a glowering 'Exit' sign presented itself from the other end of the room's operating section.

In the massive confusion that presided, the reflective door that occupy the space beneath this went completely disregarded.  
Though some of the room's other features, such as a large plate-glass window occupying every wall of the octagonally framed room, and a rectangular table in the center of the floor, were forcing themselves into recognition.

Caught in such panic, the mystic's mind could produce only one basic prerogative, which revealed itself when she begun to frantically sprint for the door. Though the path en-route was clear, as she grew mere inches away from the destination, it was quickly intercepted by a covey of beasts- - the likes of which seemed to just _appear _upon her arrival.

_So easily seduced into changing your entire frame of mind. But you really should know by now that nothing worthwhile comes easily…_

Gasping, she strode backward to evade a downward cleave.

_Come, now…_Killjoy spoke once more from behind her. _Can you not just stand still? Why are you being so 'very' predictable? _

Almost as if to comply, Raven froze to the spot, and casted a furious glance into the malevolent wraith's direction.

"You said you would _help _me…" She growled, feeling her body temperature raise considerably.

Doctor Killjoy's betrayal was proving too much for a placid temper.

The beasts begun to enclose themselves upon her, but were given no attention in return.

_And what do you call 'this', dear? _He argued.

"I left Harvey all alone just to _come _here!"

_What should you care for the life of some 'mortal'? They are basic. Simple. Enveloping any concern into their meaningless existences is a waste of time. Perhaps I was 'wrong' to have assumed that you were so set apart from 'them'. _

Something within Raven's mind ruptured at this remark. Before she could receive the time to register what was occurring within her, it let itself out.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" She shrieked before releasing a supernova of dark energy. For the first time, Doctor Killjoy exhibited surprise as he watched the explosion expand, then completely obliterate his army of butchers, sending flight to their disfigured remains.

Above the battle, the beast begun to double its efforts to escape, thrashing the bars of its cage with an almost pressed nature. As if there was some duty it had to fulfill upon escaping.

The apparition stepped warily in reverse as Raven's dark eruption begun to pull itself back in, creating a vacuum that collected the body parts of his cohorts. Once this task was finished, and there remained only the blood of its victims, the void that resulted from its predated explosion shrank in proportion, till it was out of sight.

Amid the emptiness of the room stood Raven, her still imprisoned Demonic counterpart, and Doctor Killjoy.

_My 'word'…_

The ghost uttered as he gazed into the now blood-shot eyes of his patient. She was still conscious. Slouched in posture, breathing heavily, and terribly haggard, but still wary, and _still_ a potential danger.

_It looks as though this habitual desire to cling to your cursed existence wasn't the 'only' thing I underestimated…_

He noted while studying her.

_But, it is no complication to me._ His arm raised, and swept to the side, producing another horde of beasts to do his whims.

_You are powerful, dear, there is no doubt of it. But you pose no threat to those who dwell within the shadow of the living. _

All it would require was a simple gesture in Raven's direction for her new group of adversaries to advance upon her.

Far from defeated, despite her condition, she stepped backward and opted to arm the M-16. After switching it to the standard three-round burst, a sudden thought changed her plans in an abrupt manner.

Behind the countless number of enemies, and Doctor Killjoy _himself_ was something she had noticed before, but never developed much thought into- - The projector.

Though risky, it was acceptably logical to assume that _something _was contributing to the wraith's form of afterlife. The process to which it did this was inexplicable, but it didn't take much involved thought to destroy something, and that was what her options seemed narrowed down to.

It was a gamble. But it was all she had.

Reverting the rifle back to regular burst, Raven raised it's barrel and swept a bout of gunfire into the beasts, successfully causing them to fall back. With a window of time granted from this, she carefully placed aim on one of the many projectors in the room and fired. The first two bullets completely smote the appliance, scattering its innards to the floor.

With this, a band of light that contributed to Doctor Killjoy's form begun to flicker then simply died.

The ghost railed in shock as his being's luster gave way, and the opacity of his form grew worse.

_What do you think you're doing? _He nearly bellowed, while stumbling in reverse.

"That was it…" Raven smirked haphazardly while falling back, saving space between the beasts and herself.

"You were right, Killjoy, I _can't _kill you…" The M-16 raised once more, aimed for a projector that was positioned near the entrance door.

"But I can _still_ take your immortality away from you!" She pulled the trigger, driving out an explosion of led. A second later, the targeted projector busted to pieces, aborting its contribution to Doctor Killjoy's existence.

_No…_ The wraith's tone dropped, his head shortly following. Digging his fingers into his scalp, he picked up unsteadily, _No, no, you can't do this, you FOOL!_

The beasts gained on Raven with an increased vigor, one going so much as to leap toward her, with it's blades reached out. Just barely edging by, she dodged to one side, crouched, then proceeded for a nearby operating table.

The offending creature hopped after her and flailed it's arms wildly outward, attempting to hack her to pieces whilst advancing.

Raven started in surprise as a bladed landed inches away from her, but managed to scramble underneath the table.

Seeing it's assault fail, the beast retreated, then jumped straight into the air, cleaving the obstacle in two as it came back down.

Foreboding such a maneuver, Raven fled sheer milliseconds before it occurred.

_You truly wish to destroy me? _Killjoy rasped as his patient continued to dodge and weave the assaults of his cohorts, searching desperately for another projector to destroy.

_And with such 'flawed' cause? Did it ever dawn on you what will result should you return home in your condition? _

Raven disguised a face-fault as her secondary worry was forged into words.

As she search for the next prerogative, Doctor Killjoy persisted to bode the ominous prospects that she, herself, concerned over.

_What do you think will happen if you have one of those 'Black-outs' near the ones you hold in regard? _

The mystic felt some of her will to continue diminish at this. So much so that it caused her to pause, mouth agape.

Hiding a smug look, Killjoy continued, _Do you 'really' think this beast that dwells within you is capable of distinguishing between friend and foe?_

He raised a finger toward the cage, where inside its contents begun to erratically thrust itself about, slamming it's entire body into the bars.

…_Or that it even 'cares'? What you love, it disregards! What you desire, it aims to destroy! _

_Chaos is it's nature, and if you leave this island, it may as well be yours!_

"_Shut up_!" Raven's dark mist consumed one of several tables, home to a wide array of sharp operating instruments. Spinning on her heel, she let it fly into the amassed covey of beasts that, beforehand, were less than three feet upon her.

Either dead, or preoccupied with the table's girth, Killjoy's accomplices posed no threat to Raven as she whirled back around to face him. Although the wraith glared, she said nothing, instead premising the M-16 to do the talking. Leveling it's barrel with the lens of a projector recessed in the upper-left corner of the operating room, she returned the ghost's gesture with a merciless glower of her own.

"You lied to me." She replied to his entire baleful lecture with finality, then pulled the trigger.

Two of the three slugs that were expelled would make contact with their target. One was plainly enough, as the projector was rendered useless on the first shot, and collapsed under the second.

_I don't know why I'm attempting to 'help' you! _Killjoy hissed as his patient jerked around and started for the entrance, where another projector protrude from the wall.

_Ungrateful, arrogant little wretch! I hope you return home! I hope you return and 'eradicate' everything you love! No, better yet, I hope you're sent to prison for it! I hope you're sent right back here, where it all started,_

Raven stopped completely at realizing that there was only one projector remaining.

Though the operating room didn't account for the entire area's space, it rose a considerable distance upward, allowing leeway for a second-story room. Although the projector was located here, there was no conventional means to climb the rise.

The mystic pondered the situation only briefly before spotting a switch-box toward the entrance.

Accepting a potentially lethal a risk, she took off in an immediate sprint for the door.

_This cannot happen! _Doctor Killjoy cried, panic consuming his voice quickly. He casted a sidelong glance at his minions, whom were predominantly recovered from the table assault.

_Stop her! Stop her NOW! _

They complied with little haste, but after barely accomplishing a third of the distance, time had run out.

Raven hit the wall immediately neighboring the switchbox, and forced her hand down upon a lever located to the side. The appliance that it operated nearly twenty feet above halted without a second's delay, snuffing Doctor Killjoy's last bit of life.

_No! _He uttered in near disbelief as his form gave its last few fleeting flickers, like that of a heart.

The squadron of beasts that he had spawned were barely even allowed time to register surprise before their forms, regardless of it's comprising material, begun to melt into a thick ooze, which settled upon the floor.

_My immortality! NO! _

Though he vanished thereafter, his voice remained for several seconds, making Raven's breath catch in her throat to a slight degree.

Despite his malevolence, his shocking betrayal, and his attempt to take her life in cold blood, after Killjoy simply dissipated into the air, like a prematurely expelled breath, Raven felt hopelessly alone, and the only thought she could manage to produce was 'What if he was right?' .

Above her, the beast stood in its cage, eerily silent, as if not wishing to disrupt the moment.

It's dark; pupiless eyes locked onto her. Not capable of showing emotion, but still somehow implying that it felt _something_.

Eventually, she managed to feel its cold gaze bare upon her. Slowly, she lifted her head to see it staring directly at her, frozen solid.

The lost, empty feeling that resided within her easily took control of her vocal cords, as she asked aloud, "Are you really _me_?"

Although there came an unexpected reply, it was far from the beast, and fell even more so distant from the context.

_If that's the way you feel about such an alternative, I cannot avoid this situation any longer…_

Raven searched the operating room, immediately recognizing the tone and texture of the voice to be Doctor Killjoy's. She came up empty-handed, till raising her eyes toward the second level, where the last projector was disabled. Sure as she looked, it had lapsed back into operation, and casted the wraith toward the room's ledge.

Though Raven managed to suppress a gasp, she could not disguise the shock in her voice while rasping, "You're not dead?"

Killjoy laughed subtly before replying

_Either I am more intelligent or you are more ignorant than I assumed to think that one such as myself could be destroyed by such conventional means. _

_But as long as I live at the current moment, and as long as I shall 'continue' to live, I will always look back on this day and cheerfully recall the most successful reactivity experiment I have ever conducted. _

Raven's eyebrows arched as she caught the last half this remark.

"Reactivity experiment…" She repeated, "You mean you weren't _really _trying to kill me?"

Again, Killjoy responded with a brief chuckle.

_Do you really think I would be so ignorant as to blindly throw away the greatest medical find of the century? _ He paused to cast a thoughtful gaze toward the ground, _Well…you 'must' have, but that's irrelevant. This experiment was designed to see how you would react to two particular things. The first was betrayal; the second was a 'true' life-threatening situation. I admit, you fell from expectation…But enough small talk, now is the time for confrontation!_

"What?"

_Yes, confrontation. A meeting of the minds…or shall I say, the mind, and the mind'less'? _

_Turn toward it, now, and see if you can reach out your deepest fear…_

Raven followed Doctor Killjoy's extended forefinger to the other end of the operating room. The beast's cage had been lowered to such extents that it hung directly before the front-most window. The mystic's attention quickly became divided between this, and something else that followed the cage's suit downward. A large orb, engulfed in a sinister violet aura, was suspended over the table by four large metal hooks that protruded from a brace that wound about the artifact's spherical form. She stood prone for some time, offering only a silent gape.

"What…" She begun, but trailed, stunned that such an object had gone completely unnoticed.

"What is it?"

_It is a milestone in the production of your remedy, dear. A construction forged in both the supernatural 'and' material planes; my most complex invention to date. _

The haze that permeated from the orb intensified as Raven drew near, causing her to fall less than a foot shy.

"What should I do?"

_Don't fear it, firstly. I can sense your anxiety. Brace your nightmares, and place both hands upon it. _

Reluctantly, Raven complied, palming it with a soft bite of her lip. Her hands promptly jerked away when the mist enveloped them, but it did no good. From the tips of her fingers, it descended up both arms and continued to spread in a similar form, till her entire body was little more than a vague humanoid sillouthe within a cloud of supernatural energy.

"What have you done? What _is _this?" Her panicked voice was nothing more than a distant echo that barely seemed to penetrate into the outside world.

_Set your hands apart, and everything will reveal itself. _

Raven eyed Doctor Killjoy oddly, but did as he instructed without protest. Sure as she did, that aura that engulfed her fingers begun to channel, amassing a small oval in the space between her palms. The size increased as more of the energy was collected, till the entire aura that once veiled her was sapped; Converged into a massive ball.

_Now it is time. Loose it upon the beast. _

Raven nodded, putting two and two together, and flung it forward like a medicine ball. Easily gaining leverage, the mass simply phased through the cage, and collided with the beast directly at the point of its chin. It clumsily staggered in reverse at first, its head violently railed backward, but quickly recovered. Almost as quickly as it regained its balance, it released an enraged holler, and swept an arm to the side, busting through the steel bars as if they were toothpicks.

Unfettered, the beast hopped out through the large crevice it had created, and proceeded to crash out through the window behind it, vanishing into the night.

Raven stared blankly at the shattered exit-point.

"I…_hurt _it…" She murmured in practical awe, then shifted her gaze to Doctor Killjoy.

_Indeed you did, dear._ Came a prompt, gratifying reply.

"But, it got away…"

The wraith gave a nod of his head, _Yes, but I anticipated such an outcome. This creature is phenomenally powerful when simply at peace, but should it be threatened…_ His tone hardened, causing his brow to crease, _Should it be threatened, not even 'I' can gauge the Cain that it is capable of raising…but after seeing the progress made here tonight, I have faith in you. Your potential is the stuff of the mortal realm's nightmares. Simply immeasurable. But remember, Raven, no matter what you do to accept yourself, there's no telling whether or not one day the Bell-jar will descend again…_

As he said these words, Doctor Killjoy's form begun to flicker anew. Turning his palm outward, he waved a final fair well before vanishing.

And all was silent once more.

Raven cast a glance toward the window. The rain had stopped, but it didn't seem to remedy much. The beast had broken free no less than five minutes ago, and _already_ the temperature in the operating room had noticeably dropped. After returning the M-16 to her back, she gave one more curious glance toward The Rebirth, then proceeded to exit.

Thick, heavy clouds rolled over the horizon, veiling the sky. An occasional low rumble of thunder promised more random showers before the end of the night.

The operating room exited into a small concrete depression with no particular dimensions.

A pair of cobblestone staircases set at either end led up to the Asylum's rear courtyard.

It seemed as though the area she found herself in was once used for a pool, or some sort of fountain, but a set of eroded benches placed in what was assumed to be the center suggested otherwise.

Raven begun to descend the staircase, but stopped short when she achieved enough leverage to peer into the courtyard. Bordered by thick walls that were responsible for sealing _most _of the asylum off from the rest of the world, it was an aged, crumbling locale too cramped to accommodate all of the features it possessed.

A statue of Doctor Killjoy himself dominated the very center. Stone-comprised walkways wound about the eroded ivory structure, and split off into four opposite directions. Although short walls ran alongside as a means to divide the ground between stone and what sparse amounts of grass it yielded, most of them were weathered, unkempt, and crumbled.

Directly before the statue occupy the true _reason _for Raven's abrupt halt.

The very material of his being had simply slipped through the cracks and holes of the walkways, allowing Hermes quick access to the courtyard.

Warily, Raven stepped in reverse- - This was the _last _apparition of Carnate she wanted to encounter.

Hermes easily picked that up, and sail toward her without warning, or reluctance.

_You've 'seen' death, right? _He asked while approaching, _I can look right through that fake guise of human behavior you put on, but what's your 'real' nature? Do you succumb to that which runs through your blood, or do you lie to yourself, and try to ignore it? Have you come to Carnate guilty, or innocent?_

Raven swallowed audibly, but did not falter to continue backing away.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She sought in her lungs to reply, "I'm not sure _how_ I got here, but I _know _I didn't…"

_Sure, sure, innocent till proven guilty, I've heard it all before…_ He interrupted, a vague amount of impatience in his voice,

_Still, that doesn't stop me from doing my job. Among everything else, I am a professional executor, dedicated to my work. There's no satisfaction greater than getting to terminate a human life…but you already know that…Don't you?_

With a startling burst of speed, Hermes lunged forward, as if to seize her. Gasping, Raven leapt from the staircase, back into the depression, but when she gazed over her shoulder to see how much distance had been set between the ghost and herself, he was gone.

Breathing heavily, Raven begun to reproach the steps, her heartbeat ringing in her ears.

The courtyard was deserted. Nothing to indicate that Hermes, or anything _else_, had visited.

Her fears mildly assuaged, she wandered toward the statue. From such a locale, nearly the entire yard was visible. The rear walkway hardly prevailed past fifteen feet before giving way into the asylum's porch, where the establishment could, perhaps at one time, have been accessed through the back door. Now the arched doorframe had crumbled to the floor, amassing a large pile of rubble that eliminated any chance of entering whatsoever.

Both the left and right paths were dead ends that met their conclusion at the wall, raising the unavoidable question of _why _they were founded to begin with.

This accounted, there was only one available trail left. The northernmost walkway led into a pair of steel gate-doors, which exited the asylum altogether.

Seeing no further reason or _desire _tostay, Raven started for the exit as promptly as she noted it.

A rusted padlock rested at the foot of the doors, suggesting that at one time, the condemned asylum was actually kept _secure_. A yellowed piece of parchment was tucked underneath this, neat cursive scrawled across its surface.

Kneeling down, Raven seized it by a corner and pulled the paper out.

In the distinct penmanship of Doctor Killjoy, it read,

"_The prison is where you feel at home, Raven. But which prison? Abbot? Or the prison you have made for yourself? Return to the very cell you awoke in, and I shall present you with the full gauge of my findings. Go quickly. Time is our enemy._"

Raven nearly stumble over upon reading the last half of the letter.

"_Abbot?" _She gasped, panic quickly consuming her voice, "I have to go back _there_?"

-End Chapter fifteen-

Rambling

For those of you whom thought the fourteenth chapter sucked/could use improvement, over the production of chapter sixteen, I'm going to be rewriting it.


	16. Darkest night, eternal blight

"Frailty"

Chapter sixteen- "Darkest night, eternal blight"

The path was straight, and narrow, and possessed no such grace of light. Ideally, it was little more than a narrow band of poorly collaborated stone running down the middle of a valley that, proportionally, didn't exceed a width of twenty feet. Dense wood-lines flanked both sides, making a move in the direction of anywhere _other_ than forward impossible. Normally, this would not have bothered Raven, but at the present, forward seemed daftly unsavory.

Overhead, dark foliage loomed, several branches that commandeered them dangling into her walking space. Swiping one such obstacle to the side, Raven struggled through the path, till she came to what, a more focused gaze revealed to be, an abrupt break in the path. Subsequently, the sound of rushing water penetrated her earshot.

Although her speed begun to double at this, it did not prove to endure. As more distance was gained, the expanse of land ahead came to an end, dropping into a small channel. Where the stone trail ended, a concrete bridge begun, allowing access across.

However, another discovery presented itself in company to this, achieving such a shock-appearance, that Raven stopped mid-movement.

Without proper illumination, it was difficult to tell just _what _she was staring at, although a massive, round outline donated indications. Due to a lack of advance on _it's _part, she quickly assumed that _whatever _it may have been wasn't facing her.

Any further observations were aborted when a thick, southern accent rang out across the otherwise still night air, "Foul, mindless Hell-spawns! I'll burn you ALL!"

A moment later, a glass bottle flew across the channel, colliding directly into colossal silhouette's torso. Responsively, it burst into a torrid spectacle of flame, identifying the projectile as a moltov cocktail.

The creature that once stood placidly still proceeded to flail short, stocky arms about for a brief moment before toppling over, sending a low rumble across the ground from the sheer girth of its gigantic form. Raven stared in a shocked sort of awe, till it was once more peaceful, and the only sound that proved to endure was the occasional crackle of the organism-comprised bonfire.

Warily, the mystic approached it, not wanting to acquire a closer look, but unable to stop herself.

Although she had to keep her distance from the blaze, which seemed to grow larger by the second, the details were no longer a virtual impossibility to take in. That, however, was far from a favorable condition.

Essentially, it was an abominated mass of lard. A gut hung over not only its waistline, but also the crotch, and was seered with deep gashes. Raven nearly threw up for the second occasion of the night when she looked toward the collar, and noticed that it had been crudely dissected; the wide incision that trailed down the entire torso held together only by an occasional rusted staple.

Although it wasn't difficult to note that its head was completely devoid of hair whatsoever, a chain-linked mask that fitted the sides of its head with small spikes completely veiled its face. A large morning star lay a few feet away from it, apparently dropped during the cocktail assault.

Upon spotting an intestine dangling from the incision, Raven decided she had seen enough, and picked herself up to continue across the bridge, however one last feature brought her to pause.

Cuffs were fitted on its wrists and ankles. Although the chains that linked them together at the wrists had been snapped, the ankles were still there, making potential movement a labor.

Studying further, she noted that they looked like cuffs a slave would be forced to wear. 

_Is this some sort of manifestation? _Her mind wondered as she walked away, _Are they 'all' just manifestations? What could have happened here? _

A noise from behind made her stop just a few feet shy of the bridge. A crack, followed by a sickly _splat_. Raven slowly gazed over her shoulder, back toward the fallen creature.

Although difficult to focus without turning completely around, she didn't entirely need it.

It was plain to see that the staples which held its gut together had broken. It now lay on the ground, the contents of its anatomy bore before the world.

Raven winced the sight behind her away, and opted to continue, but did not receive the opportunity to move before a high-pitched cry emanated from the laid open abdomen.

Her brow creased in perturbed intrigue as the whine grew perceptively louder, and she soon thereafter found herself backtracking.

Nestled in a pile of entrails that simply seemed to wind about were a litter of hairless rats that, for being in the presumed infantile stage, were inordinately large. Feeling her gut begin to turn, Raven backed away and staggered toward the bridge; she had seen enough details.

The channel, in short, seemed only to have been a break in the uniform pace. Raven had qued into this when she crossed the bridge, and found herself in a scene strikingly to that of when she left the asylum. Again, there was only one passage way, bordered to the left and right by thickets of trees.

Although she begun to approach with a slightly renewed pace, feeling the effects of time assuage a most unsettled stomach, a low, dragging growl that permeated from behind did a fair job of turning the tables.

The mystic would turn in time to see a small covey of machete beasts descend from the depths of the channel. Arming her rifle in quick, jaded response, Raven fell back and prepared to open fire, but was not allowed time to pull the trigger before the ground behind her burst outward, allowing leeway for more resistance; a duo of gunners, to be precise.

Going wide-eyed, she begun to retreat towards the ledge.

"Too much!"

Her voice barely prevailed a whisper amongst the slithering growls of her bladed pursuers. Regardless, she raised the M-16 and proceeded to fire blindly into the frontline.

Such a measure proved to be effective, right up until a single nine millimeter round, fired courtesy of one of the brutes, nailed her in the thigh, causing her to quickly go down in a heap.

The machete beasts wasted no time converging to the point that their pray had fallen at, but were surprised by not only a still existent, but still _ample_, amount of resistance. Struggling a retreat with one arm, Raven held the rifle steady against the ground and fired anew, blasting one particular foe's legs out from underneath it.

Two more rounds were fired, which held them off for only a second more, before all that arose from the barrel was a sharp, audible _click_.

Raven stared plaintively at the rifle; its clip had _finally _gone empty, and at the most inopportune of times.

"This _can't_ be happening!"

One more effort to escape that elicited from completely discarding the M-16 was made, which managed to bring her to a ledge that dropped into the channel. Although she prepared to slide gently down, another alternative was quick to present itself, as the distinct southern voice projected out once more amongst the battle at hand, "…And at the conclusion of my slumber, I awoke to a world of fire and darkness, and everything _good _had been dispersed from the land, and the merciless attacked me without cause!"

Raven would come to plummet in the shallow waters of the channel a mere fraction of a second before the entirety of the space she once occupied erupted into a swirling inferno. Those whom once stalked without mercy quickly found themselves in the middle of the fire, their respite accompanying the smoke's ascension into the sky.

Only one gun brute managed to withstand the blaze upon its flesh, just long enough to cast a gaze out amongst its dead cohorts. With wide, labored steps, it staggered toward the edge, but could not hold strong. It set loose amid the fire a final hopeless bellow before toppling over.

Raven watched from the depths of the channel as that which she almost lost her life to was snuffed out.

In cautious reluctance, she climbed back up to the surface and recovered the rifle, despite it being rendered useless. At one far end of the clearing was a narrow gap that led beyond the blaze, creating a possibility to continue. Returning the M-16 to her back, she proceeded on, winding her way around the blaze till a safe distance was attained.

With its wear and tear leading further inward, the path stretched directly forward, possessing no features till a rough two hundred yards down, where it was flanked by trees.

Although for the path's entire duration there was nothing more than a restricting wood-line to the immediate left, a large clearing took place all along the right side, and slumped downward several feet.

To the furthest end a thin stream cascaded over the tall, slate colored congregations of rock that bordered the area off, and landed in a wide pit that accounted for much of the ground.

Opposite this was a break in the wall of stone that led into a separate clearing.

Approaching the path's edge with caution, Raven put one foot on the slope of ground and slid downward. There was nothing that held any particular interest in the open space that greeted her, but something caught her eye in the clearing towards the very back- -something roughly resembling the outline of a house.

Crouching by the foot of the opening, Raven squinted through the darkness that prevailed in much of the opening, and saw a cottage. Or at least, what could once have been _considered_ a cottage. Now a dark, smoldered skeleton of support structure was all that remained. The roof, stripped of its predominant composition, was left with only beams, most of which had collapsed and fallen into the center of the floor. Her brow creasing, Raven recovered to her feet and wandered in, inwardly deeming the newfound area safe.

Before the burnt down house was a shoddy stone well. Its existence, though registered, was given no attention and passed by- -Till it made itself apparent.

From the pitch black depths, a buzzing sound emanated, brief in duration at first. As the seconds wore on, however, it begun to elongate. The pitch and frequency of the racket rose till Raven's attention was gained.

Reluctantly approaching, she placed both hands on the edge of the well and gazed down. What she saw was not darkness, but rather a film of bright light that was occasionally streaked with a bolt of electricity.

In due time, Horace's voice came to accompany the well's occupants.

_I like you, kid. I like you a lot, you got something here that no one else has ever had. _

_But have ya' ever been in love? Fallen head over heels for someone? How far do you think you'd go to make sure they stayed yours? It'll do so many weird things to you. When you get mad, or jealous, you feel like you could kill a man, rip 'em apart with your bare hands…ya' ever get that way?_

Raven opened her mouth to answer, but the words did not emerge. When there came no reply, he continued,

_I _dunno, maybe you're not like me, it's hard to say. Don't let this island do to you what it did to me, don't let it manipulate what you feel. You gotta' rail against it.

Just as the volts of electricity seemed to hit their highest point of intensity, they flashed a vividly bright radiance, causing the mystic to shield her eyes, then vanished.

When she looked back down, darkness once more veiled the well's bottom.

Rubbing her eyes, Raven turned toward the cottage, which all the while had sat in eerie silence.

Toward the very end of the charred skeleton was a blackened brick fireplace, in front of which there lay several sets of boxes- -odd, as they were the only objects within the locale that _weren't_ burnt up.

Crouching as to slip underneath one of the beams, Raven crept into the remnant's confines, taking subtle steps toward the cartons. She was only halfway across the floor when something went terribly wrong.

Upon taking what must have been the thirteenth step inside, a hellish migraine spawned.

Immediately, a hand clasped to the side of her head, as the pain birthed in a small corner on the left side of her head, and quickly spread across, enveloping the entirety of her mind in a pressured sort of agony.

Before long, her eyes begun to ache. But something about this begged to open them.

Something implied to see the world in a certain _kind _of suffering.

Lifting her eyelids with labor, Raven brought her gaze forward, to the fireplace. The world was slowed, and distorted. The edges of her sight were blanked by what could only be described as fuzz.

The cottage, in an entirely new light, was restored to its former glory. The walls, home to a number of portraits, were a thick, light beige, and the single room was furnished with a set of couches and tables, upon which there lay potted plants. The ceiling, assuming a steeple to sorts, was half consumed in a torrid blaze, which threatened to burn the entire house down. However, the fire did not move.

_Nothing moved. _

Directly before Raven stood three girls; triplets from what her flawed vision could decipher.

Just as the cringe on her face grew worse from the pain, one spoke in a soft, but violent voice,

"_You shouldn't play with fire…it's dangerous." _

In abrupt sequence the headache tripled, almost as if her mind could not withstand what it was perceiving. And just as quickly as it appeared, the vision vanished, and Carnate island returned to normal.

Raven had to fight the urge to drop to her knees as the pressure begun to lift. Her relief, however, was short-lived. Just as she begun to feel the full effects of recovery, the half collapsed ceiling exploded into a blaze once more, bathing the clearing into an orange glow.

Staggering forward with an abrupt burst of speed, she swiped up two of the boxes, then escaped into the surrounding yard.

Dropping the recovered loot, she fell to her knees and drew in several large bouts of breath before looking down to see just _what _she had salvaged from the structural fire.

Upon the front, there was the brand name "Wolfe", and the heft suggested that it was ammunition of some sort, but there occupy nothing on the labels to reveal just _what _it was ammunition to.

It wasn't till she look back into the cottage, catching sight of a completely disregarded shotgun toward the back corner of the sole chamber, did there arrive a telling indication.

Slumping onto her back, Raven slid her forearms behind her and lay still. She would go back for the gun, in the long run she couldn't afford _not _to, but for the time being, she needed rest.

-Harvey-

"I'll be god damned if a blown fuse is gonna' be what comes between me and getting the Hell outta' here…" Harvey's voice did not rise above a dull murmur as he prodded the innards of the light-house generator. He was no genius when it came to trouble-shooting, but it wasn't difficult to reach such a conclusion in _this _particular scenario.

Almost as quickly as he swung down the maintenance hatch, he was greeted by what looked like a massive yarn ball of wires.

Fortunately enough, there was a handful of bright yellow wire-caps placed toward one corner of the large appliance, apparently insurance for just such a predicament. Almost as quickly as he had found these, Harvey begun work, sorting through the jumbled mess for a source to the problem.

"That oughta' do it…" He muttered as a duo of wires were tucked into one of the caps, rerouting the generator's electric current.

Closing the hatch with a sharp _snap_, Harvey flipped the machine's power switch to 'on', and was welcomed by a low hum of operation.

With his task finished, the corrections officer climbed to his feet and turned toward the trail that would return him to the light-house.

Although he raised a foot to initiate his venture back, a low, resonant voice from behind stopped him in his tracks.

"Well, if it ain't Alding…"

Harvey froze in his place, hearing the speaker in a less than pleasant sort of recognition.

Slowly, he gazed over his shoulder to realize that the neighboring building had gone completely disregarded. Now his negligence came to reveal itself.

Leant in the doorway was a man of massive proportions, easily achieving six foot five. He donned the standard orange inmate's uniform, but had crudely ripped the sleeves away, exposing defined, tattoo-laden arms.

Despite being shaved bald, a pair of thick chops begun just above his ears and outlined his face, leading downward into mass of nappy, reddish-blonde facial hair.

The man made no advance, but proceeded to cross his arms as Harvey turned completely to face him.

"You were the last guy I figured I'd see alive 'round here." His lips, barely visible past the beard, jerked back into a grin, exposing yellowed teeth.

Harvey held no such reaction but regardlessly answered in a collected tone, "Hortense Mchail. Here, I was hoping you'd have been cut down by now."

"Likewise, but you should've known _I _could get through this…" The inmate's arms disengaged and he hefted himself onto his feet. "I always said there was nothin' but abuncha' slap-jawed faggots in T-Block."

Harvey nodded, his brow creased in thought, "Yeah, I suppose so. You are, after all, the world's most dangerous man."

To this, Hortense snorted loudly, "You're too kind, but I think Chuck Manson'd beg to differ."

"I think not." Came a stern reply, "Manson was a psychopath, but at least he wasn't a fuckin' baby-raper. The feds shoulda' slapped the cuffs on you coming right outta' your mom's cunt."

The prisoner's grin only broadened.

"You wanna' be the one that tries it, Alding?" His gaze came to rest on the broken arm.

"I don't think you're in the best fightin' shape."

"Even on my worst day, I could beat you down."

Hortense snickered and shook his head, then proceeded to walk past Harvey as if he weren't there.

"I ain't got the time to prove it." He sneered, then added, "But I can tell ya' what I _do_ have the time for…"

The officer's eyebrow arched, "What would that be?"

"I saw your little gal pal you were runnin' around with in the D-block hangars." His tongue snaked out from his mouth and proceeded to sweep over his lips.

"She looks yummy. Just like my daughter did before I was done with _her_…"

Harvey's teeth bared in response. "Mchail, you sorry sack o' shit!" He barked, "You lay a hand on her and I'll put a bullet through your skull as quick as she runs you into the ground!"

A discerning cackle was his only reply from Hortense as he continued to casually stroll down the path.

Although a pursuit quickly elicited, it was aborted prematurely when the ground begun to tremble violently.

"Oh, what the _fuck_ now?"

As if to answer Harvey's question, a gun brute burst from the ground, shortly followed by two accomplices.

Going wide-eyed, the officer raised his gun and fell back.

"God damn it!" he snapped, "I don't need this now!"

-End Chapter 16-

Rambling

Well, the rewrite of fourteen won't be up with this particular update. I _could _have posted a lot earlier, however I spent about a day and a half writing Raven's venture in the valleys, then trashed half of it to add this Hortense concept I came up with on a whim (I'm all about crap like that) Let me know _particularly _what you thinkof that, as it is an enterprise entirely of my own.

JackoMegane


	17. Upon a shore of Trauma

"Frailty"

Chapter seventeen- "Upon a shore of trauma"

The air was deathly still, offering not even a breeze to assail the resurrected structural fire, which threatened to leave nothing of its already destroyed victim.

Raven gazed at the spectacle in silent awe, witnessing Mother Nature's once illusive powers being stolen from her by a spectrum of evil, unfathomable to even _her _before she was placed in the middle of it.

With nothing to persuade its motion, the torrent simply rose upwards, growing more and more intense by the second.

It was not until a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her head, did she come to realize that time was of the essence; and sure as that was, she was wasting it.

She offered one more brief gaze at the fire, before closing her eyes and dashing into it.

A wave of uncomfortable warmth immediately swept over her, foreboding a fate _far _worse than simply being hacked to pieces by one of Carnate's manifestations. Despite how much this made her want to keep her eyes closed, she forced them open and frantically started for the corner furthest from her, where her motive sit, propped upright against the frame-work.

Just as Raven's first step made contact with the floor, terrible distraction found its inevitable way into her plans.

She noted, as she begun to take her second step forward, a shower of embers raining down for her. One dismissive step to the side was all it took to avoid them, however, a plaintive groan from overhead was quick to follow.

She cast a reactive glance upward just in time to see the cottage's main support beam, that which kept its slanted roof intact, surrender to its torture.

In prompt and dire sequence, a loud _crack _cried out from the foot of the beam, causing its flaming midsection to swing inward across the room.

Raven whirled to the right, and was greeted by the sight of a large gout of fire, headed straight for her. Operated off blind instinct, she leapt in reverse. The beam swung by without casualty, but after reaching the conclusion of its trip snapped off, and hit the ground with a loud but dull _WUNT_.

In immediate sequence, what little remained of the cottage that _wasn't _aflame followed suit.

The mystic startled as the end result of her dodge promptly consumed the space surrounding the shotgun, and whipped threateningly in her direction. Only one small opening to still acquire the gun offered any hope; a narrow space that the fire had yet to reach, but accessible only from the outside.

Cringing, Raven rushed forward, and dove through the building-frame. She landed in a crumpled heap, less than a foot out of harm's reach, slightly battered by the rough contact made with the ground, but thankfully enough _not_ doused in flame.

Retaining the time issue, she recovered as quickly as she could manage, and snapped a hand into the corner of the frame, seizing the shotgun by its midsection.

Anything _positive _that could have been adopted by her seizure didn't receive time to settle before an overwhelming amount of heat converged on Raven's trespassing arm.

In a swift, fluid motion, she pulled out, only to confirm the terrible notion that she had indeed, caught herself on fire.

For one terrifying instant, the only sound that dared to intrude was the blaze's mockingly calm crackle. Raven went still, fallen victim to her shock.

And she would have remained that way, had the cottage not chosen that moment to proceed in its collapse by allowing a series of beams that once held the greeting wall up to come crashing to the ground.

All at once, everything came rushing back to her head. The shotgun, her burning arm, and in-tow, a clear recollection of the pit, just a short distance away.

In a flurry of legs, Raven bolted from the clearing, and promptly thereafter shifted towards a familiar stream, rushing over tall congregations of stone.

Rather than collectively submerse her arm upon arriving, the mystic discharged her gun to the ground, and frantically leapt forward, diving in head-first.

As luck would have it, the pit drove much deeper than what could be assumed from looking at its surface, thus when Raven's panic-driven tactic came out into full play, no further injury followed.

The fire was prompt to extinguish as she sunk further towards the pit's floor, subsequently causing the already tainted water to cloud up.

She burst out a second later, casting filthy sprays of the pit's contents in every direction, and proceeded to approach the embankment.

After sputtering something awful, the mystic tumbled over and came to rest on her knees.

On a higher note, the blaze that had so amply threatened to completely disable her turned out to have left only the uncomfortable redness of a first-degree burn. The fabric of her leotard, where it had primarily caught at, was completely burnt through, and singed right up to the elbow.

Raven's face flushed slightly as she came to terms with scorched skin that was left as a momento; Relieved that it didn't result in anything worse, but still so _very _angry with herself for not having been more cautious. Had she been more wary before snapping her hand inside, nothing would have likely happened at all.

With a silent sigh, she climbed to her feet, and reclaimed the shotgun.

The path, which was reached after Raven returned to the cottage to properly reload, led further into a scene that was beginning to repeat itself over the last forty-five minutes.

Another set of dense wood-lines that skirted the trail for its visible duration. The familiar depiction didn't last long, though, as Raven neared the large twin stone-foundations that essentially sectionalized the two areas.

"It'll be a cold day in Hades before I relent to you fiends!"

Her head snapped in every direction as the thick southern voice broke out across the night air.

She saw nothing, till her eyes raised towards the top of the foundation. The speaker, as it would be assumed, was not visible, however what she _could _see was a trio of machete' beasts scuttling in her direction.

She did not receive the chance to assume the defensive before the voice once more projected out,

"UPSTARTS! Maybe _this _will keep you back!"

An explosion followed, causing a tremor so violent, Raven was knocked to her knees.

When she looked up once more, a scene familiar to the cottage welcomed her.

A thick tree, once centralized in the foundation to her left, was enveloped in the flame of a Moltov, and slowly beginning to tip her way.

Time, in that instance, was more forgiving than it had been previously. Raven was allowed to snap to her feet and scramble into a safe-haven, just before the broadside of the tree came toppling over.

Gracious as that may have been, the path was left in flaming shambles.

The beasts, for their part, were completely crushed. The foundation was leveled to the ground, the fire was spreading at an alarmingly rapid pace, and there held no sign of the mystery arsonist who was half to thank and half to blame for all of it.

Thinking on her feet, Raven shut her eyes and put forth a degree of concentration, which came out as, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

As reward, her feet lifted from the ground.

After gaining substantial leverage, she passed over the tree, but did not touch down immediately thereafter.

The sight that presented itself from below was, indeed, blandly familiar; almost déjà vu.

Another stream, slightly more aggressive than its predecessor, divided the area in half.

A bridge that was once intended to allow access between the two sections had collapsed at the center, now offering little more than concrete blockage to the rushing water below.

Face-faulting, Raven begun to dip down, and dove for the other side.

She came to rest gently on the path, which refracted a slight degree to persist onward through the thickets of trees.

Her initial pace as she pressed on was that of a normal stride, but was prompt to advance into a dead sprint when the voice hollered from further downward, "DEATH TO THE SPOILERS!"

Huffing, Raven rounded a corner, and found herself in a new clearing. The path led into the center, then broke off to the left, exiting not only out of the open space, but the wood-trail altogether. Beyond it was a shoreline, its details vague due to her position.

To one corner of the clearing was a makeshift barricade of lumber, mostly destroyed by weather and wood-rot. Behind it ducked the man responsible for all of the night's moltov-assaults.

Grey, thinning hair, and considerable amounts of wrinkles upon his face indicated that he was middle-aged.

An orange cover-all suggested his conviction status.

But a head-count of twelve offending beasts clearly _stated_ that he was in dire need of assistance.

Raven wasted no time to consider the results before advancing into the clearing and relieving the shotgun of a round.

The rearmost creature abruptly jolted forward as a blast nailed it between the shoulder blades. It groggily recovered and pulled a labored turn as if to retaliate, but instead slumped over, thereafter revealing a roughly snapped spine.

A hot breath dispersed from Raven's lips as the others turned to face her.

The barrel raised slowly, and leveled with the torso of the nearest creature, however just as her finger grazed the trigger, she was stopped by the convict, "Don't waste your ammo on these upstarts! They're all just fodder, I'm afraid…and there's an eternal supply."

Her eyebrow arched, and compliantly, she begun to back away.

"So, what do we do?"

The man rose above the barricade into plain view, a moltov clutched in his hand.

"Just keep them distracted till I can get a good opportunity, and when I say now, hit the dirt!…and do make sure to cover your eyes."

The mystic's back peddling quickly turned to dodges as the first few beasts made their arrival, and immediately begun attacking. Using her powers, she swept aside a shield and deflected the numerous blows, buying her new-found assistance time to find a good open spot.

His eyes, though losing some of their luster in his old age, had no trouble pin-pointing it when it came around.

Raven was driven further backward as a particularly nasty downward cleave connected with her shield. In sequence, the creatures converged in attempts to get the first pickings.

"Duck, NOW!"

The in-mate reared his arm back and forced it forward, sending the moltov nearly jettisoning outward.

Raven promptly scrambled onto her stomach, and not a second too soon. As her arms slung over her head, an explosion rattled the ground. The moltov combusted directly over the covey, subsequently bathing them in flame.

She was quick to recover to her feet and start in the barricade's direction. The beasts lost their normally brutish thought pattern as they were barbecued alive, and showed her advance no response.

She sacrificed one more moment upon arriving to turn and blast through one that had grown uncomfortably close, then crouched down beside the convict.

He showed no gratification, and only stared forward, till every last potential threat had hit the ground.

When that inevitable instance came to be, he rose abruptly, and offered a hand to Raven.

"It's good to see another Human being among the livin'." He greeted whilst hauling her to her feet. "I dread to think of that little episode's end, had you not shown up…"

She was given time only to nod, before he continued, "The name's Clam, ma'am. I've been plotting my escape from Abbot for years, and hoped to carry out my exodus tomorrow, but these…recent events…have ruined everything. Here, I'll show you…"

With that, the man whom had addressed himself as Clam spun on his heel and started for the wood-trail's exit.

Raven quickly caught up with him as he proceeded out to a grungy, rotted dock that over-looked what was quite possibly the most depressing shore she had ever seen- -One she distinctly recalled seeing minutes after escaping from Abbot.

"Look, there!" Clam backed away and pointed toward the receding waves. "Do ya' see, coming out of the water? I _swear_, it is the most hideous thing I have ever laid eyes upon!"

Raven followed his gaze, to be greeted by that which she never hoped to encounter again.

Indeed, one of the gelatinous brutes had emerged from the surface, and approached the dock at a gradual pace. Shortly thereafter, it was joined by three more.

Clam advanced forward to a corner of the dock, where he had stockpiled another arsenal of Moltovs.

Taking hold of one such projectile, he turned toward Raven.

"If you have a good arm, I suggest you grab one, yourself. The only way to be relatively safe is to fight, tooth and nail!"

As if his own words had toughened his resolve, he planted one foot on the edge, and hurled the Moltov towards the closest monstrosity, nailing it over the head.

"BACK TO THE SEA, YOU AQUATIC ATROSTIES!"

Raven looked thoughtfully at the cocktails. Over the course of the night, her ability to throw had been surprisingly impressive, failing to let her down even once.

But its reliability held no argument to a point-blank shotgun blast.

Adopting the gun into both hands, she cast a determined gaze into the still advancing abominations, and proceeded to drop down to the foot of the docks.

Another moltov was lobbed across the sky in the course of her venture, effectively narrowing the headcount to two. The fire that resulted consumed a wide space that made closing the distance any further difficult, but regardless, Raven jerked forward, setting herself directly before one of the mammoth freaks.

Her face carried a hopeful, courageous expression as she yanked back on the trigger, pumping a single shot intended to devastate the point of impact.

The mystic's breath caught in her throat at what resulted.

The rounds made contact, alright. They simply sunk into its flesh, and left behind a few deep holes.

And this was as close to injury as her assault came; the creature held nary a flinch.

"Brave, but none too intelligent!" Clam called from behind a now wide-eyed Raven, then proceeded to smite her opposition with another Moltov. Caught in the motion of what was supposed to be retaliation, it let its morning star plummet to the sand, and subsequently followed suit.

The low rumble that elicited from the mammoth's heavy form hitting the ground helped to snap Raven out of the awestruck trance its insane resilience placed her under.

Sure as her mind was cleared, she turned and took off in a dead sprint for the dock.

"It's _impossible_!" The mystic huffed to Clam as heaved her back into relative safety.

"I hit that thing _point-blank_, and it was barely even effected!"

A reply was slow to follow. Raven stared blankly as the inmate seized another Moltov and flung it forward, ridding them of the last remaining threat.

Clam released a relieved sigh when things once more begun to settle down.

"These festering creatures flaunt science with their every step." He declared, casting a gaze toward Raven. "What's more, is now I fear they are impervious to bullets, and can only be burnt or blown up…If I didn't know better, I'd say they have some sort of connection with the eighteenth century slave ship, wrecked up the beach aways…Well, lets get a move on."

He abruptly turned, grabbed a Moltov in each hand, and dropped from the dock.

Raven stared warily towards the burning remnants left upon the shore before pursuing.

The venture down the beach was quiet, neither saying a word for fear that they would be greeted by more than just a reply. Taking the time to catch her breath, Raven shifted her eyes from one area to the other, taking in all of the shore's details.

She was almost certain that the prison was directly above her.

The land took a startling elevation to her right, creating a solid wall of earth for much of the shore's duration (evidently only letting up where she had entered through).

The tide, as it were expected, shifted perpetually; its waves prevailing to certain lengths upon the shore, then abruptly declining back into the ocean. However, something strange _still _included itself within the predominantly lucid scene. The entire process seemed more gradual than it should be.

The water more viscous, the waves crawled in, then simply seemed to _slump _back.

It appeared, in that instant, similar to the movement of the gargantuan beasts that emerged from beneath it.

"There she is!" Clam's voice cut her observation short. She directed her gaze forward to see a gigantic form resting across the beach that, perhaps at one time, could have been considered a vessel, meant to embark across the vast Atlantic.

Now, the stern was about the only choice section that could still be considered halfway intact.

Raven noticed as she drew closer that it almost looked as though a massive tidal wave had simply picked the ship up and _threw _it into Carnate; the entire bow was crushed, leaving that which it was once comprised of strewn out across the immediate area. Crates, barrels and other such memoirs joined it.

There was little to nothing left of what could have been considered the center, making both sides of the shore accessible, but only by journeying through the wreckage. Bent and chipped support structure was all that remained, till the cargo hold took place, towards the very back.

"To my understandin'" Clam continued, taking a sudden wary pace towards the ship, "few were killed in the crash itself, though the traders did not free their still _living _Human cargo. Instead, they left them shackled in the ship's hull, where slowly, the Negroes were eaten alive by rats…"

His lecture ended prematurely when he cast a sidelong glance towards the shore, to see a fresh horde of the creatures emerge from the waves.

"Damnation, here come more of them!" He cursed then retreated toward the canyon-like wall.

"Hurry!" His attention rounded to Raven, "Get back to the dock and grab as many cocktails as you can! It's the only way!"

The mystic nodded compliantly, and started for the docks.

After she was within a safe distance, Clam turned back toward his opposition. They had gained a remarkable distance toward him for their usual 'step-drag-step-drag' movement.

A scowl creased the aging man's features as he held out a moltov.

"I'll be damned if I came this close to freedom just to die _here_." He stated, then flung the explosive into the center of the mob.

The shrill sound of busting glass screamed over the air, leading into a new massive inferno.

Only one was brought down in the end, although the remaining numbers were left badly burnt.

"Annihilation is here!"

Clam rushed forward, and lobbed another moltov out, then followed it up with one more, eliminating his last defense.

A moment later, two more hit the ground, sending the significant quake that that promised their death out across the earth.

Raven stopped abruptly as she came to terms with what she was seeing. She had returned from the docks with an arm-full of cocktails, but was welcomed by a less than warm scene.

Clam dropped to the ground just in time to dodge the lethal sphere of a morning star, then rolled to the side seconds before it came crashing down like an iron meteorite.

There was no time for him to carry the assault further, and in consequence, his life was on Raven's shoulders.

The cache of moltovs fell from her grasp, and landed gently upon the sand. The mystic dropped down beside them and pulled three to their own pile; there was only one plan capable of safely ending this that she could think of.

Clam had almost recovered to an upright position, but another wide swipe was quick to interrupt him. He sprang out to the right, and was granted more distance between the two remaining monsters and him. Although hopeful plans of retaliation were quick to bud from this, they saw no conclusion before the occult once more found its way into the altercation.

No more than a second after Clam had risen to his feet, something flew by his head.

It traveled at such an incredulous speed that he saw only a vague blur of darkness, then a massive explosion.

Clam concluded, as he dove for cover that whatever came to his assistance was no_ single_ moltov.

The fire left behind that thoroughly barbecued the two remaining brutes was the result of three, four, maybe _five _thrown at the same time.

Raven stood in silence as the bonfire entered its initial stages, causing the temperature to skyrocket. An inward wince struck her when Clam approached; he looked like he'd just had an epiphany.

"You know, I had the gut feeling from the second I saw you that you weren't entirely human…"

He stated, his voice slightly weak, "But that's _hardly _relevant at the present moment. My only concern is getting off this island. If it weren't for those water-logged abominations, I'd be able to set my raft assail…it's a tiny vessel, far too small and un-seaworthy to accommodate more than one person…probably not even one who weighs as much as yourself…I'll show you."

The mystic breathed a sigh of relief at Clam's nonchalance; he simply turned and proceeded toward the hole in the slave ship. Before following suit, she paused just briefly to observe her handiwork. The fire was growing exponentially larger, and cutting close to the slave ship.

"My raft's not much, but I pray it will be enough." Clam remarked from the other side as she made her way through the Hull of the ship.

The scene that was beheld in the interior sent a chill down her spine.

It was narrow; a claustrophobe's nightmare. The flooring, what little of it showed through the sand and murky water that had collected over the some two hundred years, ran towards the stern till it met a wall with a frame-way in the center, leading further still toward the rear.

But none of this caught Raven's eye quite as much as the bodies.

What little remained of the misfortunate slaves were ducked against the walls, their rusted chains still fettering them. Far beyond the decomposition stage, it was a strange wonder that they were still in such a well preserved state; some still possessing withered flesh upon their bones.

Raven swallowed hard, and strode the remaining distance to reunite herself with Clam.

On the other side of the cursed ship, the beach stretched out for as far as the eye could perceive.

She noticed, as she arrived, a foul, acrid odor hanging thick in the air, and looked toward the earthen wall to see a man-sized sewage pipe protruding from it.

"If my theory is correct…" Clam's voice rose from behind her. She turned to see the convict knelt down before the shoreline, making adjustments to an incredibly small makeshift raft.

"The perpetual spawning of these creatures have some sort of tie to that ship…I'd sooner believe it is the manifestations of the traders, forced to repeat the fate they bestowed upon the slaves."

He finished whatever work he was doing on the getaway boat and turned to face Raven.

"If you can get in that ship and find a way to destroy it, I may be able to set sail and leave this God forsaken island."

The mystic replied with an incredulous look, which he quickly cued into.

"My flimsy raft cannot hold the both of us, ma'am, and I _do _hate to leave you here, but I applaud to your humanity. At least let it do _me _some good."

"Well…" Raven cast a thoughtful glance back toward the pipe, "Actually, I was hoping to get into Abbot…"

"Abbot?" Now it was Clam's turn to offer a slightly awestruck look. "I clambered out of that sewage drain to _escape _from Abbot…I wonder now if I wouldn't just be safer going back inside. But I can't turn back on my plan _now_, not after I've come this far. If Abbot is what you want, I could make helping me out worth your while…"

The two exchanged solemn stares for a moment, before Raven nodded her head.

"Sure." And allowed a thin smile to cross her lips.

Their hands met in a sealing shake, but it did not endure before Raven, whom was facing the incoming waves, caught an eyeful of another band of colossal fiends pierce the water's surface.

Her eyes widened in alarm as she murmured, "Clam!"

The elderly man followed her gaze to that which she saw.

"At just the moment I anticipated…" He stated discerningly. "Time is of the essence. Take a cocktail and find a good place inside the ship to set it aflame, I'll hold them off!"

Without so much as a nod, Raven dropped all but one motlov and started for the ship.

Almost the instant she found herself back inside the hull, an explosion was heard, shortly followed by Clam's shout, "YOUR JUDGEMENT DAY IS AT HAND, FILTH!"

Doing her best to shut not only the ongoing battle, but the ghastly scene that presided in the ship out, she cleared her mind, and proceeded through the frame-way, into the next room.

It was no improvement, but rather an amplification of its predecessor.

With the dimensions, it was clearly the primary hold. The next two stories of the ship were accessible, right up to the deck and on every walkway, every staircase, on every conceivable open space of the walls, there were bodies. Some held fast to each other in their last moments of life, others curled helplessly in the corners, but in likeness, they all met the same terrible fate.

Raven whipped back and shut her eyes tight, feeling a little bit of her innocent sanity leave her at this, but there came no rest for her. There came only further trial as one of the brutes begun to emerge in the center of the hold, where sand primarily took the ground.

She was promptly assaulted by the heavy iron ball, but sprang away just as it came sweeping through the space she once occupied.

Again, the beast flung its weapon out, but instead made contact with several corpses of the slaves, missing its intended target by a hair. As heads, arms and other appendages flew across the hold in the wake of its second miss, it brought the morning star up once more and pulled an overhead swing, but accidentally caught a shelf that was home to several barrels behind it.

The wooden containers busted apart and their liquid contents spilled into the water that occupied much of the ground. Raven paid it no mind, till she noticed that it was failing to mix with the water, and simply bled black into it, indicating that it was insoluble.

Subsequently, the familiar stench of gasoline hit her nostrils.

In as swift and fluid of a motion as she could muster, Raven flung the cocktail into the water with as much strength as she could muster, and rushed out through the frame-way.

A moment later, the hold erupted into flame, immediately dousing the walls, the support beams, the slaves and everything else.

Her immediate urge, as the blaze took the rest of the ship in relatively short time, was to leave before it caught up with her locale, but something momentarily froze her.

The brute that she had engaged had yet to fall. It flailed and thrashed wildly, but if it or the circumstances were anything like they had been for the past few encounters, it should have been dead long ago.

It took one more labored step towards her, before immediately ceasing all movement.

A deep, disembodied howl tore out from behind its mask.

Raven looked down to the torso to see rats escaping from its stomach. Some slipped through the incision, but many clawed and bit their way through the its flesh.

As they trailed down its leg, the rodents scrambled away, and shortly following, the beast doubled over.

After it hit the floor, Raven wasted no more time to watch, and made sure to double her speed when she looked up to see much of the support structure _already_ catching fire.

The mystic was surprised as she exited back to the shore to see an already departing Clam.

His raft bobbed upon the undulating surface of water at a slow-but-sure pace.

"You have my eternal thanks, ma'am!" He called cheerfully while waving, "I've left you a map of Abbot at the entrance of the sewage pipe, and if you're going back there, I offer a word of warning!"

Raven's eyebrow arched in intrigue, "What's that?"

"Don't be so quick to trust other inmates, should you find any. There's a man I fear may have gotten loose in all of the chaos…a big fella' by the name of Mchail. He was convicted a few years ago of molestin' and murderin' his small daughter, and if the two of you happen to meet, well…"

He paused, but quickly started back up as the raft begun to pick up speed, "Suffice to say, I don't think he's gonna' let these circumstances stop him from returning to his old evils…"

Raven nodded, and watched till the raft was a safe distance from Carnate. Afterwards, she turned and begun to assess just _how _to reach the sewage pipe.

Unbeknownst to her, the very subject of Clam's warning was less than hundred yards down the shore, watching as she climbed in.

Hortense stood with his arms folded across his chest, and let his trademark, appalling grin crack across his face.

"Nothin' like the fresh meat…" He remarked silently while on-looking.

"You're gonna be all Hortense's in just a lil' while, but not right now…not till the moment's _perfect_…" A malicious cackle followed.

"Not till the gettin's good."

-End chapter 17-


	18. Surfacing

Frailty

Chapter eighteen- "Surfacing"

Raven sparingly looked toward the ground as she took her first few steps into the tunnel.

The smell was unbearable, and she could feel the source of it rushing against her; a thick stream of human waste that prevailed nearly to the mid-calve.

That alone was almost more than her stomach could stand.

The sewage network, in contrast to the rest of Abbot, was granted dim amounts of light by an occasional overhead fixture. Because of that, Raven was able to see sloppy arrangements of cords pinned to the schemes where the walls met the ceiling. In her scarce observation, she noted that they seemed to sustain through the entire duration, probably providing the entire area with power.

Likely to prevent escapes in the manner of which Clam had done, two steel gate doors, set an even ten feet apart from each other, divided the tunnel into thirds. Both were yawning open, and appeared to have been undisturbed for some time.

So it came as an unpleasant surprise to the mystic, when she ventured between them, and was stopped short by an unbearable groan that tore out from the hinges.

She quickly cued into what was happening, but was not able to get into the clear before both doors slammed shut in unison, trapping her between them.

In bitter, jaded response, she let the map fall into the river of sludge below, and swung her shotgun into both hands.

There was hardly any time to muse over a possible way out, before the supernatural intervened.

Raven looked up after hearing a familiar buzz/crackling noise to see two large gouts of electricity traveling down the cords. Just short of the first door, they stopped short and each produced a lightning bolt, which struck a space of floor less than five feet from her on the other side.

From this spectacle, Horace materialized, groaning under the volts of electricity that assailed him.

"This place wants you, Raven." His voice prevailed amongst the noise.

"It needs people like you. Once it gets a hold of you, it won't let you go, just like it hasn't let _me _go…" He staggered forward, and grabbed onto the door for support.

"I been down here for so damn long, it's sucked me dry…I can only _pray _that it's almost done with me…It let you out for a lil' bit, but now it wants you back, deep inside…" The apparition's tone seemed to gain strength as it continued.

"Deep inside, where I've been all these fucking years…don't say…" and he pushed himself onto his feet, to stretch both arms out. Somehow, the voltage amplified at this, and redirected to the door, causing it to swing outward.

"I NEVER DID NOTHIN' FOR YOU!"

Raven stood, silently watching, till he vanished from sight. His closing statement echoed in her head,

"COME, JOIN ME…IN THE DANCE HALL!"

She gazed over her shoulder once everything had gone dormant. The rear gate had not opened; no turning back, now, even if she _wanted_ to.

The mystic sparred one more moment to reach down and pluck the map from the putrid waste.

It had been pretty well soaked through, but was still legible, thankfully enough.

From the light blue ink drawn upon the crumpled surface, the corridor she was in presently ended in a T-junction.

A ten-foot journey forward confirmed this.

The left break was sealed off by another gate, leaving only one option.

Pushing the thought of discarding the soiled map down, Raven folded it in half, and pushed it behind her charm, then proceeded into the right turn.

She was led further into the system of drainage tunnels, by another T-junction, similar to the last.

This process repeated itself several times over, till she came to an abrupt dead end.

On the ceiling, she saw a rounded hatch with a valve serving as the handle. It appeared to be closed and secure, but could not have sprung outward any faster when Raven approached.

Taken slightly off-guard, she stepped back as a steel service ladder proceeded to slide out the new opening, and hit the ground, allowing access to the next floor.

"It let you out for a little bit, but now it wants you back…" Raven recollected Horace's dire statement as she blankly stared.

The realization hit her, as she begun to climb the ladder, that he could not have been any more correct.

There was a certain, silent relief that hit her as she passed through the hatch, finalizing her journey through those abysmal drainage tunnels.

The map identified the room she had entered as a pumping station.

Much of the flooring was that of a narrow bridge-like architecture, meant to accommodate the cesspools, which accounted for much of the square footage.

To one wall, columns of large, reflective cylindrical structures pierced the soiled water, and rose nearly to the ceiling. Plastic, rectangular panels planted on the front exhibited a show of dull green and red lights that blinked in random intervals.

To the right end of this particular wall, there was a recession. A small expansion of the room, which held a receptionist desk, and, from Raven's standpoint, what looked like a slightly ajar door.

She concluded while approaching, that whatever lay beyond it was well lit.

A narrow beam of light that filtered through the open space shone across an otherwise dark pump room.

Her hand grazed the knob, but did not immediately grasp.

Something struck her, as she prepared to enter, and while railing back, Raven recognized it as the very headache that had afflicted her in the cottage.

Her eyes shut as tight as they could go before the world begun to slow. Whatever this terrible flashback had come to show her, she was sure she didn't need to see.

…And while she was sparred the visible detail, words could still be heard, with a deafening clarity.

"Sir, you _can't _do this! You can't just condemn your own men!"

This voice of a youthful, outraged texture argued, and was replied to by a deeper, stern protest.

"They're spies for the Nazis! A threat to our security! Do you want me to just _ignore_ that?

As long as you're in this base, you'll do _exactly _as I command, I'm GOD here!"

And just as quickly as it had come, the ache lifted.

Raven's eyes opened slowly, to see that the door had swung fully out. Behind it, a staircase led upward, past the barrier of the doorframe, and into the unknown.

As she brought her foot to the first step, the mystic tried her best to figure the meaning of this particular visit.

She wouldn't have much luck, till she reached the top.

The last step melted into a stretch of floorboards that ran forward a moderate distance, then let up at the foot of a heavy iron door.

The walls of this narrow corridor were mostly of a featureless, ugly brick that looked old. Remarkably old.

There was only one thing there to grab Raven's attention as she padded silently forward.

A yellowed poster had been sloppily taped to the wall at a locale that could've been assumed as the middle.

Dominating the center was a Swatstika, and underneath large red lettering assembled the line, "THIS IS THE ENEMY".

Raven recalled this, as she observed, being some sort of advertisement widely used during World War two that prompted a boycott on German imports.

The clear, inhumane disaster that was Carnate island's past remained a mystery to her, but as she silently observed this poster, a near sixty year old relic of the second great war, things slowly begun to add up.

The pieces surfaced one by one, and told her the story of an island that was more than just an island, and a prison that, at one misbegotten time, was more than just a prison.

The following event that snapped Raven's train of thought came so quick and so abruptly that she was barely given time to register.

The heavy door that she later intended to warily pass through burst outward, causing it to smash into the corner of the hallway with an alarming crash.

The mystic spun on her heel just as an invading gun beast hit the floor in preparation to open fire.

Its assault was heard long before it could become visible, allowing Raven a small window of time to blanket herself in a dome of black magic.

The bullets simply bounced off.

Almost as if to react, the creature lifted its head and let out an irate bellow, then rushed forward.

Upon arriving a foot shy from Raven, it greeted by doubling up a fist and violently lashing out.

A well-thought but none too fluid crouch put her out of harm's way, and as the beast stumbled forward in the wake of it's miss, presented a golden opportunity.

It took an extra few seconds for her assailant to regain its footing, and once it did, the barrel of Raven's shotgun wound up getting pressed into its abdomen.

Without a second thought, she pulled back on the trigger.

A muffled blast ensued, relocating most if not all of its midsection out across the floor.

The collection of bodily fluid, intestines and bright yellow fat that splayed across the hardwood would not be visible for long, before that which once held them followed suit.

The beast lost its balance anew, and tumbled over onto its back, causing the many guns it harbored to go off at once.

With a dead intensity, it used its last few seconds of life to miraculously lift its torso and reach out. The strain that this move exerted forced a cascade of blood from its mouth and, as if operating as some sort of signal, helped it retreat to the floor.

The arsenal on its back fired off once more, causing Raven to start slightly. Something about the creature caught her in the instance that it attempted to recover; a detail she had failed to notice before.

Cautious step by step, she advanced upon its corpse, till she found herself standing directly over it. From that standpoint, she was given an eye full of a mange white scarf that wrapped about its head, veiling the eyes.

"…A blind-fold."

The mystic whispered under her breath with a shudder. The fabric blended in with the tone of its flesh exceptionally well with its flesh, but in this light she could clearly see.

And this very simple little facet of a large, bizarre beast suggested that it was different from the rest of Carnate.

Unlike the decapitated Machete, unlike those chimp-like, mainlining _freaks_, this creature held a true, concrete link to the island's history.

There wasn't enough evidence or experience to adopt this as fact, but Raven assured herself as she proceeded down the corridor, that when the time was right, she would learn.

The room that the beast had come from was different, to say in the least. Raven was surprised to learn, after taking a look at the map, that it, nor the corridor linking it to the pumping station were present.

She averted her gaze from the map to fix a quizzical look into the musty, brick comprised chamber.

To her immediate right, a doorframe led further into the prison's alleged basement, and a series of holding cells occupied the wall directly across from her, their steel gate doors intended to hopelessly detain left hanging open.

Venturing further toward one of these cells allowed her to see a passage that the aforementioned doorframe granted access to. Short-lived as it was, the room it gave way into was blanked out by thick darkness.

Raven paid this little mind at first; something in the middle of her present room's three detainment cells caught her eye. A carton lay on its side in the center of the tiny space, leaving shells strewn across the floor.

The mystic knelt down to observe further, but cut herself short when her eyes met with the corner of the cell, and was greeted by a pile of human feces, petrified by advanced age.

Her clear disgust exhibited on her face as she recovered to her feet and backed away, although it wasn't entirely surprising.

She noticed at that moment that these particular cells held no furnishings whatsoever; barely even enough space for a full grown adult to lay down.

Raven knew little to nothing of the prison systems, but surely, there would have been legal repercussions for an environment like _this_.

"Unless…"

Only a word of contemplation emerged before the symptoms of a third flashback assailed her.

The mystic's hands grabbed harshly to her scalp as the less than pleasantly familiar jackhammer sensation begun to pound away at her skull, and invited the world to slow to a dead halt.

She managed a strained groan before backing up into the cell's rear wall. The impact caused her head to jolt up, and her eyes snapped open.

Blue irises met with the dark gray blod of a shut gate door, beyond which the blurry forms of two men were visible.

The visit seemed quite unclear, unlike the first occasion in the cottage, and almost boded a potential to depart at any given second.

But, it remained, and despite the pain she endured, Raven did everything she could to compose herself, and focus upon the still frame outside the cell.

One man sat on the edge of a chair, his arms flung out in evident frustration. The other stood only a few feet away with a clenched fist raised, as though ready to smash something.

Ironically, as the details became cleaner, dialogue arose.

"You have NO proof of this accusation! The men you locked in those cells are every bit as American as you and me!"

Those cells 

The two words struck her with the most significance, and as she strained to drop her gaze, a sharp retort ensued.

"Like _Hell_ they are! If internment camps are a good idea for those shit-pokes out west, then unloading a few spare shells into some worthless spies'll do fine on _this _coast!"

Raven spent the flashback's final instances staring blankly at her feet. Or at least, where they _should _have been. A crouched, humanoid figure rested in the precise area that she stood, and like a ghost, her legs simply phased right through him. With his head ducked between his knees, none of the mystery captive's features could be distinguished, or set apart from a heavy green jacket that presented the words "U.S Army" on the back.

There were several things Carnate Island hosted that were capable of unraveling Raven's collected frame of mind. She felt just that, as she slid down the cell wall, and came to rest on her butt.

By the time her eyelids hefted up once more, the world was blurring, as if to set the stage for relative normalcy. The colors of the arguing militants, the crouched man, even the closed gate door bled into one, and like a heavily breathed sigh, lifted.

Raven watched all the while, as the stone chamber reoriented itself; each individual detail falling into place with relative speed. Groggily, she climbed to her feet. The monstrous headache had vanished almost as quickly as the flashback itself, but even so the simple memory of how it felt momentarily crippled her.

A hand shot to the wall for support when her balance abruptly failed her, and after a vain attempt to regain her composure, the empath pushed herself back onto her feet, and staggered away.

The shells she sought were left strewn across the ground, completely undisturbed.

Over her venture through the basement of Abbot, the physical ache that Raven gained had not dampened, or amplified, but remained at a constant, right where it was. Either because of that, or a lack of observation, or simply an overzealous desire to _forget _everything the night had forced her to endure, the rooms and corridors she had navigated no less than three hours prior failed to register any memories.

The only thing that appeared familiar, after close to fifteen minutes of aimlessly wandering, was a heavy bolted door with the words "ABBOT CORRECTIONAL FACILITY" stenciled across the middle. This, amongst other things, implied an exit, back into the cellblocks and administrative offices of the prison.

Sure enough, as Raven swung the door outward and stepped across the threshold, she found herself in a wide, dimly lit hallway that ran some distance to both the left and right.

A column of payphones occupied the space of wall that neighbored her entrance point.

She noted whilst advancing into the middle of the hallway that many of the phones themselves had been plucked from the base, and left dangling at the end of the cord.

The left break ended far sooner than the right, which spanned out several yards, and concluded in a T-junction.

This dead end, as it were essentially, was home to a lone frame, the door of which gaped open. A sign planted to the side identified it as, "ELECTROCUTION CHAMBER (WITNESS ROOM)"

The well-lit room that lay beyond failed to boast much for free space, nor furnishing.

Plain, white tile spanned across the floor, and the center inclined into a rectangular stand that harbored several chairs.

At the corner, just as it were with the lethal injection chamber, two security monitors displayed the room on the other side.

Separated by a thick sheet of glass, the slightly larger space was featureless, save for a control panel on each of the three available walls, and the hellish machine that procured its name.

Established in the center of the chamber, the electric chair did indeed look as though something more than a mere mortal had forged it into existence.

A thick cord trailed from each control panel, and hooked up to the rear of the chair, granting its lethal potential. Straps on the armrests and back intended to prevent any violent movement hung loosely, rendered useless for many years.

Raven was only a step into her silent approach before a sharp disruption killed her movement.

She gazed over her shoulder, towards the wall of payphones. One of the few that were still intact abruptly begun to ring, braying its call for attention out across the corridor.

The noisy appliance's threat of calling unwanted attention to the mystic promptly redirected her toward it.

Her hand snapped forward and seized the phone by its neck, then jerked it from the receiver.

Holding it to her ear, she asked in a hushed tone, "Who is this?"

Her reply came from none other than Horace, but was hardly gratifying.

Excitedly, he beamed, "Yeah baby, I got it! They agreed to the conjugal visit! I called some markers with the C.O's, and they put in a good word. Yeah, they ain't _all _bad. Oh baby, it drives me nuts thinkin' of you out there in the world, without me to keep ya' safe…I love you _so _fuckin' much, I'll show you when ya' come…I can't fuckin' _wait_!"

And with that, he hung up. Raven puzzled, but as soon as she placed the phone back on the receiver, Horace's voice interjected once more.

"_Jesus, I made that call to her so long ago…Wish I could forget, but this place won't let it happen._"

The mystic spun on her heel to face the electrocution chamber. Sure enough, Horace stood in the open doorway, a hand clutching his head.

"_I been waitin' so long just to fuckin' sleep…_"

His head lifted, allowing him to fix a dead stare onto her.

"_Don't let me down, Raven. I think you're my last cha…_"

The electricity that normally shrouded him made a late appearance, bursting out as he spoke.

The apparition let out a tormented groan before doubling over, and simply vanishing, leaving the large gout of electricity behind.

Rather than grow, or follow suit and disappear, it shot into the chamber.

Raven attempted only briefly to digest what she saw before biting her lower lip and pursuing.

She held no prediction or expectation for what would greet her when she entered, but even so, was shocked at the sight that she beheld.

Beyond the witness room, Horace was strapped tight into the electric chair. The bracer on the back held his head up, forcing him to look directly at Raven.

The expression he carried made her wish she could die, as well.

"_Oh no." _He murmured as several lights on the control panels begun to flicker.

"It's back… it's starting again. It never stops, it just keeps burning! It won't let me go!" 

The switch that begun the deadly process was positioned directly behind the chair, at the foot of its base. That accounted, she didn't see when it simply flipped to the side, inviting lethal volts of electricity to once more begin assailing Horace.

"_AAAAAHHHHRRG!" _His scream made her start in surprise.

Terrified, she backed away and watched as the apparition jolted violently around in the chair.

"SCALDING! I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE, I JUST WANNA' DIE!" 

Horace's evident pain distracted Raven greatly. So much so, that she failed to notice the large sphere of electricity that accumulated above him, towards the ceiling.

This genuine negligence did not endure, however, when the electrocution abruptly stopped.

Horace went limp and sunk between the armrests as far as he was permitted to go.

Possibly because of that which he endured, he offered no word of warning for the colossal ball of voltage that was released.

It smashed into the dividing glass with such force that, there was little to no remnants, and as Raven stumbled back, Horace spoke once more, _"This ain't just about helping me kid. This place wants you dead. It wants you here, with me."_

And the electrocution begun anew, forcing out another scream.

"_UAAAAHHG! It burns! IT BURNS! STOP IT, RAVEN! STOP 'ME'!" _

-End chapter 18-

**Shameless plugs from the author (hey, at least it breaks the mold from the rambling…right?)**

Well, it's been almost two weeks since I released my other TT story, "Rose, tint my world" on this site, and…wow…it hasn't gotten anything at all…Only eight hits, for that matter.

Alright, alright, I know I shouldn't be bitching, being as I've gotten all this feedback for Frailty, and have barely returned the favor, but I've recently tuned into my wanton negligence, and am doing what I can to make up for that.

Anywho, if you've been reading this fanfiction and have actually _enjoyed _it, you might wanna give "Rose, tint my world" a once over.

Despite the implications of the name, it's actually a survival horror fic, and my attempt to cross TT with an old Genesis game called Splatter House.

That being said, peace out, I'll do what I can to make up for my ignorance, and I _hope _you'll read this fic, being as it was one of the few enterprises I've ever thought up that my sister actually supported.

Enjoi,

JackoMegane


	19. An Endless Nightmare

Frailty

Chapter nineteen, "An endless nightmare"

"_I think we got somethin' in common, Raven_." Horace's words came through clear, and were registered, but not given much attention as Raven stepped warily into the electrocution chamber.

For the time being, everything was dormant. The fettered apparition, quite possibly Carnate's most tragic victim, was given a moment's peace to speak.

This, however, did not mean he was out of the woods, as the four control panels creating his torment were encased in a bright, volatile glow.

An electrical force field, Raven concluded after studying it closer.

"_We know what love is. We know what it's like to be so attached to someone that we'd give up our own mortality for them_…_The people you had back home…you'd do 'anything' for them, am I right?_"

A labored groan trailed out from Horace's thought-provoking speech, causing Raven to gaze over her shoulder.

His condition was nothing to be entirely alarmed over, but a diameter of electricity that had come to spawn at the base of the chair caught her focus.

Raven turned just as it began to spread outward across the floor, closing the distance to her feet.

Unsure of its lethality and not willing to find out, she waited till it was just shy of a foot away, and cautiously stepped over.

"_There's somethin' else we got in common 'cause of this island_…" Horace spoke once more when she was in the clear.

"_We both know what it's like to lose it all. To' not' be in control!" _

All at once, the electrocution returned, causing him to thrash violently in his restraints.

His voice wavered with the voltage that coursed through him as he screamed, "_AAAaaAAAhhh! It's so fuckin' HOT!_"

Raven retreated to a vague degree and turned her head away, but was forced to look back when a sharp, loud crackling tore out from above.

A glance toward the expanse of ceiling that looked over the chair confirmed her fears.

The mass of electricity that destroyed over fifty square feet of thick glass was back, and well on its way to being set loose anew.

Preparing herself for evasion came as the first priority over finding a way past the force fields, not to mention Horace's pain, when the mass stopped growing.

With no warning, it shot out on a direct coarse for her and, not even achieving half the distance, caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end.

That, as much as anything else, was her cue to flee.

Instinct told Raven to exit the scene altogether, but her gratitude for the occasions on which Horace had rendered aid combined with a strangely swollen sense of humanity, and guided her to the other corner of the chamber.

Fortunately enough, the ball was as slow as its size suggested, and came to land in the region she had occupied before escaping.

The entire room was made aware of its collision in a violent quake, which threw her to the ground almost immediately.

For a short time afterwards, however, dormancy ensued, and Horace was allowed to continue.

In an exhausted voice, he huffed, "…_I can't even remember what I was put in here for…beatin' up some guy, whatever, it ain't important. I got screwed by the system. Fuck 'em, they fucked my LIFE. They're as responsible for my old lady's dyin' as I am._"

Rubbing her head, which had struck the wall while falling down, Raven slowly recovered, and was greeted by the field of electricity making its return.

"_Nobody ever wants to hear the whole story. Just lock 'em up, throw away the key, see 'em next lifetime._"

A relatively simple thought struck her as she prepared to evade once more.

The forces that wove in and out of Carnate island's fabric were a mystery to her, but Abbot was built by mortals.

Flesh, and blood, and bone.

And at the present moment, it was using the electric chair, a device of likewise creation, to not only torture Horace, but to kill her.

This train of thought brought her to realize that in order to do this, it _had _to be using the prison's power, and significantly rerouting it in order to collect the energy needed for its massive ball.

The fact that this was just theory, and Raven's impressive gathering on it in such a narrow timeframe were rendered irrelevant when the very attack once more entered its initial stages, as indicated by Horace's sudden scream.

"_UaaaaAAAAHHHGG! It's endless! It's an endless fuckin' nightmare_!"

Raven prepared to dodge, but cast a sidelong glance toward the nearest control panel.

Its protecting force field faltered several times in indication of letting up, but was slow to follow through.

The anticipation eventually caused her to fix an anxious gaze onto the electric shield, and just as her eyes begun to begun to grow weary of the muddled strobe effect it created, two drawn out flickers struck. All at once, it blinked out, leaving the object it defended vulnerable.

The mystic was not a second into assuming the offensive when something intervened.

Even though the shield was gone, for some reason she was still being given a great amount of light to place aim with…

She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that the mass had released, she _did_, however throw a short glance in that very direction to register its distance.

From rough judgement, the slowly encroaching ball was a quarter of the way through its venture.

Doing her best to shove this aside, Raven snapped her shotgun into both hands and forced off a lone round.

Small showers of sparks proceeded to burst and arch out from the point of impact, leaving only a shattered box that once served as number of the electric chair's control panels.

The small victory, given its lack of effect, didn't invite even an inward celebration.

In light, it actually posed a new obstacle.

Raven's hasty venture to the other side of the chamber was coupled with a crack, followed by a series of loud, sharp hisses; both of which came from behind.

Investigating further wasn't so much as a consideration till she arrived once more in relative safety.

As if it were learning, the mass of electricity now began to show vague signs of pursuing its quarry after being released.

But try as it might throughout the entire trip, it gradually lost altitude. Barely half of the distance to its target was achieved before the ball simply crashed into the floor, sending another powerful tremble out across the expanse of floor to indicate its failure.

On this occasion, Raven braced herself and with struggle and a great amount of focus, retained just enough balance to stay on her feet.

Almost immediately, her attention returned to the successfully destroyed panel across the room.

It was still in the exact same condition, but now bordered off by a thick cord that hung from the ceiling.

Once a line that navigated the room in order to feed electric current from the panel to the chair,

Raven's attack freed it from all restraint, and after adorning itself with the volatile energy it once transported, allowed it to whip wildly around.

"_I…I…_"Horace rasped breathlessly, causing Raven to redirect her attention onto him, "_I just wanted to keep her safe. I couldn't protect her on the inside. It ate me up, I'd lie awake at night just thinkin' of what could happen to her. Any guy…any guy like me that really 'loved' his old lady woulda' done the same._"

His voice strained with the last declaration, signaling attention to the floor, where the secondary, far less lethal attack was making its third appearance.

"_I got to be where I couldn't take it any more…"_ He grunted as Raven stepped hastily over, and changed directions for another control panel. She didn't know when the electrocution would return, but it would happen.

That much she was _positive _of.

"_So, on that day, she came over for a conjugal, and we fucked. I screwed her like I never had before, it was warm, and rough and 'sweet'…the best lay of our lives…"_

A cherished recollection from the tortured wraith abruptly tracked into a sharp howl when Carnate returned its offense, forcing him to repeat his demise all over again.

"_IT'S…COMING…AGAIN!"_

He managed through the violent jolting.

Half to be completely ready and half to take her eyes away from the scene before her, Raven spun on her heel and waited for the shield that protected her target to drop.

Caught up in the activity of her own mind with the last occasion, she had not kept track of the time required for Carnate to sap all of the electrocution chamber's available energy. Thus, she had nothing to go on but raw hope and courage as she stood by, occasionally glancing over her shoulder to check the slowly converging mass' size.

The chamber's trade of bright blue for black had begun to grow more rapid as the electrocution intensified, and was in turn augmented by Horace's defeated groan.

"_I…I BEEN THROUGH THIS FOR SO LONG, IT'S SUCKED ME DRY! THERE'S NOTHING LEFT!"_

Raven cringed at hearing him speak, and did her best to focus on the panel's field. It was easy to keep her mind elsewhere for the other occasions he spoke.

She knew that the mass behind her was growing with each second, and one emotion out of check at the wrong time would be enough to do her in.

But Horace's words were stacking up, getting in her head and combining with an already

well-established mound of grief.

Correcting everything she could of it, the mystic shut her eyes and fought back the raw pain that was quickly colonizing her attention span, but an oblivious Horace pressed on.

"_I THOUGHT THAT AFTER THE FIRST FEW TIMES, I'D BE USED TO IT, BUT IT'S LIKE EVERY TIME I WIND UP IN THIS CHAIR, EVERYTHING'S COMPLETELY FUCKIN' NEW TO ME! LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED, LIKE I NEVER DIED!"_

Something strange, almost _feral _tore out from Raven's mouth as she spun around, firing the shotgun at no intended target.

Despite their wide range, none of the slugs met with Horace- -It was no consequence to his assailant, whom continued to pull the trigger till the panel's field dropped.

As if on an afterthought, Raven turned and ripped the appliance from the wall.

Thick mooring cables, steel bolts and a concrete recession didn't match strength with the animalistic, white-hot rage that came at the hands of anguish.

With little if no resistance, the panel was pulled away and, in turn, thrown into a newly released electric mass.

It couldn't be distinguished as to whether or not the following explosion or Raven's sudden outburst was the cause, but without so much as a sigh, the mystic's knees buckled, and she half-collapsed to the floor.

There was hardly time for silence as she did her very best to recover.

Horace, left in peace for whatever precious time he had, spoke, "_That's what this island wants from you, kid. It wants to see the 'real' you, so it can keep you trapped like that. Trapped like 'me'. I don't know what brought you here, but when you showed up, this place came to 'life'." _

Panting, Raven drug herself into a slouched stance, and looked directly toward Horace.

"My father…" The two words failed to overcome her heavy breaths, though at the right earshot, they could be heard.

And with a growing tone, she emphasized, "He did this. He woke up Carnate."

The pale apparition leaned forward in his restraints, and coughed. Hard.

So hard that Raven would have become concerned, had she not taken note of the electric barrier advancing outward.

There was only one fault that made avoiding as she had done several times before slightly more difficult.

Her exhaustion was hitting its absolute hardest now. After all of her injuries and trials, Raven's tire had gotten to be overwhelming, and in light, Horace's words coupled with her will to live was all that kept her form toppling over altogether.

That survivalist's resolve, however, was the _only _thing that motivated her carefully avoid the light attack.

_Your dad, huh? _Horace managed through his hacks, which had somewhat dissipated.

"Yes. I can't explain it, but he's _always _with me." Raven stepped back and snapped her eyes from one end of the chamber to the other. Two panels down, two to go, but matters were only getting worse as the peace drew on.

Her gun was getting harder and harder to keep steady, and she knew that when the mass came back and released, it was going to have somehow evolved once more.

_We're so damned alike, you and me. _

The barest impression of a smirk crossed the Horace's face. Inwardly, he knew the burning execution was about to strike once more.

But he was going to do his best to remain strong through it.

_Lady luck threw shit in both of our faces. _

Raven was his best chance at being set free, but the more he screamed, the worse it got for her.

And he knew it. He knew that her sense of humanity was a big risk on her life, which was ironic.

The first small bouts of static struck him. And soon, a snap, and a dull whir from the back ground, and it would all be over, for the upteenth time.

Wincing, Horace spoke once more before the convulsing, burning torment hit full force,

_But I guess everybody got here through some pretty fucked up circumstances. _

The more often it occurred, the more intense the electrocution seemed to become, and as the

bright light flashed out, a clear depiction of writhing bolts enveloped Horace's figure. The most he reacted with, however, was a low, labored groan.

Raven knew good and well what was coming, and like _far _too many times before, she waited till everything else in the room that was operated by the prison's electric current begun to flicker to assume any sort of offense.

A small huff of strain escaped her as she pulled the gun into both hands and advanced on the nearest switch.

Its shield was dying, sure as she was placing aim on it, and almost as soon as the ball released, everything became final.

A hot, powerful blast of led nailed the recessed box dead-on, caving in most of its center while at the same time sending a wave of sparks off into the opposite direction.

Raven observed just long enough to ascertain that her shot was accurate, then tore off for the other end of chamber.

Although the rattling crash very slightly jarred her from focus, the mystic didn't need to hear it to know that that horrid ball of brilliance was back to pursuing her.

She could _feel _the small fields of static electricity that radiated off of it.

She knew it was faster than she was, now, and because of that, Raven dove forward upon closing the distance to a bare corner.

Having assumed the worst, she balled up and waited for it to hit.

Moving the faster than it ever had, the great sphere was set on a direct collision coarse for the wall behind its quarry; it hadn't however dropped leverage as she had, and even at the apex of its operation, it couldn't accommodate her abrupt dodge.

Rather than hit Raven, it came down upon a choice space less than a foot above her head.

The girl's cringe did nothing to assuage the loud bellow of eruption that tore out, but for the attack's alarming proximity, it seemed nothing short of a divine favor that she came out unharmed.

But then, everything seemed to look up after such a long time of hurt.

There was only one switch left. Raven was slowly recovering, and Horace had crumpled in the wake of being reduced to nothing.

In a genuinely dead tone, he closed his history.

_And then my old lady was layin' there, after…she looked so beautiful, with that sheen of sweat runnin' down her face…and I did it. I cut her. Every inch of her. _ _All over…_

Raven stopped dead at hearing it. Somehow, she knew it was building up to this; Horace was a deranged murderer. But to digest hearing it, and to come to terms that she was being used…

All she could do was stare blankly at the ghost.

And all _he _could do was keep digging. Keep exentuating the disheartening truth that he was _no _friend.

_After I was finished, no one could see her. No one could see her beauty. She was mine forever. 'Cause there are some sick people out there, Raven. People with no sense of dignity, people that'll fuck a corpse and not think twice about it. I had to protect her from that. I had to protect her from everything. _

There was no checkpoint to indicate that the execution was coming back. There was no avoidable foundation of voltage, no flickering, the bolts simply returned, and even Horace showed definable signs of surprise with his sharp scream as they lanced him from head to toe.

And momentarily, Raven only watched, feeling a disgustingly pleasant pang of satisfaction.

In less than five minutes, Horace was again suffering indescribably, and his intended savior couldn't think of a more glorious sight.

_RAVEN!_

He managed while convulsing.

_THE SWITCH IS OPEN, IT'S FUCKIN' OPEN! SHOOT I-aaaAAAAHHHH!_

Still frozen to her place, Raven sneaked one glance at the last operational switch. It was vulnerable, alright, and the ball was growing at a phenomenal rate. But in her savory of the moment, she did nothing.

_DON'T DO THIS NOW, DON'T YOU GET IT? THE ISLAND KNOWS IT'S LOSING, IT'S PULLING A TRUMP CARD! IF YOU DON'T SHOOT THAT THING, THIS ENTIRE PRISON'S COMING TO THE GROUND AND YOU'RE GOING WITH IT!_

For all of Horace's yelling, the simplest of solutions followed.

Without averting her gaze, Raven rose the shotgun in one hand, and fired.

There could be no judgement between which was more bizarre; the complete absence of recoil, or the sharp bull's-eye that hit the final panel.

The ball, which was just on the verge of releasing, seemed to implode as its last leg of life was destroyed.

The bolts that formed it fired out and draped over the electric chair, vanishing upon coming into contact with the ground.

And Horace, absolutely drained, slumped forward.

_Thank…you…_

He sighed with a resigned with a true last breath.

Still unmoving, Raven ignored how quickly the power in Abbot redistributed itself.

She ignored the eerie fact that Horace's fried corpse remained.

In an unsteady voice, she replied to an empty room, "Don't mention it."

-End Chapter 19-

**Author's notes**

Well, if I'm not dodging phony-ass hurricanes that threaten to rip through half of Texas, it looks as though I'm battling off impossibly strong bouts of college-culture shock.

Oh, I can explain every sordid detail about _why _it's taken me so long to get off my sorry ass and get this chapter posted, but do you guys that have remained (If any at all) _really _wanna hear it?

Somehow, I doubt that.

I'll do my absolute best to get back on track with things, here.

Next thing, however, is picking RTMW back up.

"That's life, and as funny as it may seem…some people get their kicks stompin' on a dream."

-Frank Sinatra


End file.
